Chinese migrants are entering US illegally - CNA followed part of their journey

well last year 2.5 million migrants entered the United States illegally via the southern border and nearly 40,000 of them came from China and to reach America they often have to travel through Ecuador Colombia Panama Central America and Mexico to reach California for seven weeks from November to January CNA senior correspondent Wu and her crew followed a group of Chinese migrants for part of this perilous journey and this is the scene that greeted them when they reach the US border wall in California China ch ch line line hold on can you please wait we are taking 250 right now okay you're going to be fine it's all CH let's do whes hey we got to do whes white white white only white only white [Music] [Music] there you go sit down on the ground and take your cell phones out come on move in cell phones put them in your bags to your back [Music] please for and when people cough come to cover their mouth I don't want to get sick okay no it's a jacket is [Music] it it needs to be a t-shirt a shirt no jackets no hoodies no sweatshirts Cardigans nothing [Music] [Music] s what nationalities do you see more of these days be perfectly H with you Chinese is that a surprise good yeah out here yeah R it's not our normal customer [Music] [Music] and uh for more Wu joins us live now from Hong Kong to talk about this uh documentary way nearly 40,000 Chinese migrants made that journey in 2023 that seems like an awfully big number and and why are they doing it I mean it's it's a very risky Journey isn't it yeah that's right I'll tell you that is actually the most frequently Asked question even when we were on the shoot but I want to address the 40,000 figure because a lot of people also say that's not a lot of people when you consider it was 2.5 million migrants that entered the USA illegally in 201 23 and certainly there's still 1.4 billion people in China but what really matters here is the trend right cuz 4,000 that's twice as many as what they had in a decade before so you in the past you're only looking at a handful of Chinese people making this trip now several news reports have been made about the migrants arriving on the border when they are interviewed and invariably they say we're here for freedom and democracy there's of course nothing wrong with that but we just had this sneaking suspicion that it's not the whole story based on our experience of making migration documentaries in the past so the crew and I traveled to keto Ecuador we met a group of Chinese migrants we had dinner with them they relaxed a bit and they opened up take a listen fore foree [Music] [Music] oh well it's really good job you you get the migrants to open up to you there um but when it comes to you and your crew and you spent a bit of time with them on the journey which part of the journey was actually the most dangerous uh it's sort of the most dangerous part people usually would assume that would be the Darian Gap but as it turns out because the Chinese migrants pay so much money to the Darian Gap uh the Smugglers actually found new and faster routes for them so that turned out to be actually not so traumatic for the Chinese migrants uh uh but the most difficult part actually turned out to be uh Mexico this is both for the migrants and for us as well because it's just politically and culturally so different from Asia within a couple of hours of them arriving in Mexico they were robbed at gunpoint and then kidnapped and uh along the way they encountered police extortion and detention by migration officials and for the crew and I ourselves we uh also you know we were dealing with the people who are moving these migrants who also are involved in moving drugs so they're not the warmest and easiest to negotiate with people uh even though we came with security protection and we had the Deep local expertise of our fixers there were still quite a few hair raising moments I don't want to give all of that story away that is why you must watch what the line this week and then Monday next week no doubt way thanks for putting your life on the line for us that's cna's W do and walk the lineer three-part documentary Premier tomorrow on CNA at 9:00 P p.m. Singapore Hong Kong time and subsequent episodes will air in the same time slot on Sunday as well as on Monday and of course you can also catch it on CNA Insider's YouTube channel at the same time and on video on demand at cna. Asia or meat. SG

Channel: CNA

Views: 159,105

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Id: 9BAEHMpcH9Y

Length: 9min 26sec (566 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024