There were more than 1,000 apprehensions of Chinese nationals crossing the U.S. border illegally in the last week, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) source tells Fox News.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 1,026 Chinese nationals in the last week alone, the source said. Of those, 98.5% were caught in the San Diego Sector.
San Diego saw 1,011 encounters, Yuma Sector saw 10, while there were two in El Centro Sector and two at the northern border. There were no apprehensions of Chinese nationals in Texas.
BORDER PATROL SECTOR STOPS HUNDREDS OF CHINESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN JUST TWO DAYS AS NUMBERS SOAR
The latest numbers come as the border has seen a dramatic increase in the numbers of Chinese nationals, a trend that has raised national security concerns and fears of espionage from some Republicans.
The San Diego Sector saw more than 200 encounters in two separate days last week. On Thursday, agents encountered 223 migrants, after encountering 262 on Wednesday.
That means that more Chinese illegal immigrants crossed illegally into the sector in two days than across the entire southern border in all of FY 21 – when 342 migrants were encountered.
Overall, across the border, numbers have increased dramatically since FY 21. There were 1,970 encounters in FY 2022, over 24,000 in FY 2023 and so far there have been over 24,200 encounters so far this fiscal year.
Some Republicans have raised concern about the possibility of espionage from those coming across the border. Recently, House Republicans warned that the Chinese Communist Party "wants the chaos and devastation" that comes from fentanyl coming in to the U.S. Illicit fentanyl is primarily made using Chinese precursors by Mexican cartels and then moved across the southern land border.
ICE CHIEF SAYS THIS FOREIGN ADVERSARY ISN'T TAKING BACK ITS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all rank-and-file Border Patrol agents nationwide, told Fox News earlier this year that the majority of the Chinese border crossers are single adult males of military age.
"That is a very scary prospect. We know that China does not like us. We know that we are in the crosshairs of China," he said. "And they are exporting so many people to our country, and you have to really fear about that."
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At a recent House Appropriations Committee hearing, acting ICE Director Patrick Lechleitner was asked by Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., to identify the top countries that are the most difficult to return nationals to when deported from the U.S. – and including China in that list.
"We've got Bhutan, top of the list there, Cambodia, they've been challenging, the People’s Republic of China, although we’ve had some recent cautiously optimistic progress with the Chinese, so I want to say it’s moving in the right direction there."
