Chinese immigrants are flocking to the U.S. in record numbers, with government data indicating a surge of nationals being apprehended at the southwest border.
Those Chinese nationals have permeated the southern border by utilizing tools and instructions they have found through TikTok, CBS' "60 Minutes" found.
Field reporter Julio Rosas and "Confucius Never Said" author Helen Raleigh discussed what has motivated Chinese immigrants to come to the U.S. in the first place and how the surge of asylum seekers has impacted national security during "Fox & Friends."
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"They were really driven by, first of all, the open invitation of our lawless border," Raleigh told Lawrence Jones on Tuesday. "Everybody else is doing it, facing no consequences, so they are following those examples. And secondly, but most importantly, they were driven by China's, political, ongoing political persecution and a deteriorating economic situation."
"Nobody feels safe in China, and… on the economic front, there's a high youth unemployment rate. The stock markets are deteriorating. People saw the biggest drop of their salaries last year, as well as the property market, slumping and the property market especially hurting people's confidence because over 70% of the Chinese people have their personal wealth tied to properties," she continued.
"So all these factors combined are driving people to come here."
"60 Minutes" met some of the Chinese migrants coming through the southern border in a segment that aired over the weekend, where many said they have been able to make it into the United States by following explicit directions posted on TikTok. They were reportedly given instructions on how to get a smuggler's help to enter the country through a border wall gap.
Camera crews captured several carloads of the migrants being dropped off by smugglers at an open border gap east of San Diego. Many of the illegal immigrants traveled through many countries on a treacherous, expensive journey to come to America.
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The number of Chinese nationals apprehended at the southwest border has surged in recent years.
In fiscal year 2021, there were only 450 Chinese migrants apprehended, in contrast to 2,176 and 24,314 in fiscal years 2022 and 2023 respectively.
Chinese migrants are the fastest growing group trying to come to the United States, according to CBP. Many are flying to Ecuador, where they don't need a visa, and making their trek through Latin America before reaching the U.S. southern border.
"This really hasn't happened before, at least in these large numbers," Rosas said. "We're not even talking about people from Asia. But we just had that recent report where an al-Shabab terrorist didn't even avoid Border Patrol. He turned himself in, he was processed and released, and was in the country for over a year before the U.S. government realized their mistake."
"This is very concerning. I've been raising the warning for quite some time about this," he continued.
A TikTok spokesperson told Fox News, "TikTok strictly prohibits human smuggling which we remove from our platform and report to law enforcement when warranted."
The spokesperson also noted that during the third quarter of 2023, the platform "proactively" removed 93% of videos for violating its human exploitation policy.
Regardless, Rosas warned the porous southern border could facilitate an opportunity for American adversaries to "exploit" U.S. interests.
"It's what we've been seeing for the past few years now, and the fact that there's no fear, the fact that we have Border Patrol essentially trying to hide from illegal immigrants and illegal immigrants are the ones trying to find Border Patrol, that just shows how crazy things have become under this administration," Rosas said.
"It's not even central or even South Americans anymore. It's people from all over the world and people coming from, let's face it, adversarial countries who may want to do us harm and may want to exploit us through this weak point," he continued.
