Immigration expert warns Chinese illegal aliens using Canadian city as gateway to US

Fox News

22-05-2025

An immigration expert says that the flow of Chinese illegal aliens into the United States could largely be supported by the Chinese community in a western Canadian city and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is likely using known Canadian smuggling routes to sneak operatives into the U.S.
As southern border crossings have ground to a virtual halt, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, Mark Krikorian, shared his thoughts on the continuing flow of Chinese illegal aliens from the north.
"It would be logical if they're trying to come across the northern border instead," he told Fox News Digital. "And there are lots of Chinese people in Vancouver. I mean there's this very large Chinese population, Hong Kong population, etc."
Krikorian said the Chinese population in Vancouver is not so much "teeming with spies" as it is a tool that serves as cover for potential Chinese bad actors looking to cross into the U.S.
"Whether they're regular criminals or whether they're People's Liberation Army operatives, or who knows what, a Chinese community gives them a medium through which to move where they're not alien," he said.
"It's kind of like one of Mao's sayings," Krikorian said. "'The people are like the sea and the revolutionaries are like the fish.' In other words, they use the people as the sea through which [the revolutionaries] swim."
According to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the number of Chinese nationals caught crossing into the U.S. via the northern border so far in fiscal 2025 is 4,042. The total in fiscal 2024 was 12,414.
The fiscal year closes at the end of September, meaning that the U.S. is on pace for fewer crossings by Chinese nationals this year than last.
"It would make perfect sense that they (the CCP) would use preexisting Chinese communities and networks as the medium through which they get into Canada and then [it's] kind of a jumping off point to get into the United States," Krikorian said.
Krikorian said potential Chinese illegal aliens enter Canada in various ways, including through student visas and tourist visas, which allow them to be in proximity to the U.S. border in the first place. He also said he believes smuggling routes are well known to Chinese officials and that the smuggling is facilitated by local CCP allies.
"A lot of them must be hiring smugglers just because if you don't know the ropes, how do you know where to go and who to talk to and what part of the border to sneak across?" he said. "It's harder than it looks."
Krikorian said he does not believe there is currently a grand conspiracy to send groups of Chinese spies into the U.S. via the northern border, especially because of the Trump administration's stricter policies on border security.
An operation like that, he said, would more likely occur with more relaxed border policies like the ones during the Biden administration and that the CCP is patient and calculated enough to simply wait until America's borders are open again.
However, he said it was unfathomable to think that China would give up on exploiting America's border weaknesses or using preexisting smuggling routes they have used in the past.
"I think the main thing is just people coming for dishwashing jobs, like regular illegal aliens," he said. "But if there's a flow like that, the People's Liberation Army is not stupid. They're going to salt it with people they're going to want to use in the future, whether it's saboteurs or spies or what have you.
"Does anybody think the Chinese Communist Party is stupid enough not to have taken advantage of this opportunity Biden gave them? No."