Dr. Phil McGraw has suggested that Chinese migrants crossing the border are working as spies.
The TV personality appeared on Fox News on Tuesday to discuss his recent trip to the US-Mexico border, which has seen a significant influx of Chinese migrants.
“We would be incredibly narcissistic to assume that these people are just coming here because they are in the area,” Dr. Phil told Sean Hannity.
‘What are they doing? If they work in agriculture, if they work in industry, I promise you they are expected to do certain things. Are they spying? Do they send seeds back from agriculture to China? Do they get plans from the industries they work on?’
While previously many of the migrants causing the US border crisis came from Central and South America, thousands have now come from China.
Dr. Phi McGraw has suggested that Chinese migrants crossing the border are working as spies
Dr. Phil slammed President Biden’s immigration policies for fueling a “humanitarian crisis” at the southern border, saying it is “unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
For fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that 24,048 Chinese citizens were apprehended at the border with Mexico, more than in the previous 10 years combined.
That’s more than ten times more than the 1,970 arrests recorded during the 2022 financial year, and just 323 the year before, when China was under strict pandemic travel bans and lockdowns.
Last week Dr. Phil blasted President Biden’s immigration policy for fueling a “humanitarian crisis” at the southern border, saying it is “unlike anything we’ve seen before.”
The talk show host, 73, said he visited the border in Texas because he “needed to see for himself” the unfettered illegal immigration flooding the US.
“In just three years, more than six million illegal immigrants have crossed the southern border into Texas,” he said.
“That’s more than the population of 33 different states in this country.”
It comes as tensions rise between Texas officials and the federal government over how to stop the ongoing caravans, after December broke a record for migrants encountered by border patrol agents with a whopping 302,000 incidents.
Meanwhile, TikTokers are posting videos pointing migrants to the easiest entry points.
TikTokers appear to be undermining efforts to strengthen the defense system by highlighting its weaknesses to migrants – including holes in the fence between Mexico and California.
While previously many of the migrants causing the US border crisis came from Central and South America, thousands have now come from China
For fiscal year 2023, which ended in September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 24,048 apprehensions of Chinese migrants by Border Patrol agents at the southern border
Migrants who formed an orderly line to pass through the hole on Sunday told 60 Minutes they learned about the entrance from a video on TikTok.
One video provides step-by-step instructions for hiring smugglers and detailed directions for gaps in border defenses.
Migrant smugglers are also known to advertise their illegal services in exchange for cash on the Chinese app.
A comprehensive USA Today report details the ways in which both migrants and human smugglers have harnessed the power of social media to advise others making the journey and promote their services.
Other smugglers have even taken to social media to brag about how easy it is to cross the US-Mexico border.
The influx of Chinese migrants can be partly explained by the rising popularity of the dangerous Darien Gap route.
According to Panamanian immigration authorities, Chinese were the fourth highest nationality, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians, to cross the Darién Gap for most of 2023.
Chinese asylum seekers who spoke to The Associated Press, as well as observers, say they are trying to escape an increasingly repressive political climate and bleak economic outlook.
The pandemic and China’s COVID-19 policies, which included strict border controls, temporarily halted the exodus that increased dramatically in 2018 when President Xi Jinping amended the constitution to abolish presidential term limits.
Now emigration has resumed, with the Chinese economy struggling to recover and youth unemployment high. The United Nations predicts that China will lose 310,000 people to emigration this year, compared to 120,000 in 2012.
It has become known as ‘runxue’, or the study of running away. The term started as a way to circumvent censorship, using a Chinese character whose pronunciation is similar to the English word “run” but means “to moisten.” Now it’s an internet meme.
“This wave of emigration reflects the desperation toward China,” said Cai Xia, editor-in-chief of the Yibao online commentary site and a former professor at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School in Beijing.
“They have lost hope for the country’s future,” said Cai, who now lives in the US. ‘Among them you see skilled and unskilled white-collar workers, but also small business owners and people from wealthy families.’
The popular route to the US runs via Ecuador, where there is no visa requirement for Chinese nationals. Migrants from China are joining Latin Americans there to trek north through the once impenetrable Darién and through several Central American countries before reaching the U.S. border. The journey is well known enough and has its own name in Chinese: ‘walk the line’ or ‘zouxian’.