Number of Chinese migrants crossing the border at San Diego now exceeds Mexicans and is second only to Colombians with 21,000 entering there in the past five months

The number of Chinese nationals crossing the southern US border near San Diego has eclipsed the number of Mexicans in recent months, according to a new report.

US Customs and Border Protection has recorded 21,000 encounters with Chinese nationals in the San Diego Sector since the fiscal year began in October, according to CBP data obtained by Fox News that is not yet public.

That's more than the 18,700 encounters with Mexican nationals during the same period, and second only to the 28,000 Columbians CBP reported encountering in the sector. 

Migrants from Brazil (8,700) and Ecuador (7,700) were the next largest groups, and other countries of origin include Turkey, Guinea, India, Guatemala and Peru, underlining the increasingly global nature of migration at the US-Mexico border.

In fiscal 2023, CBP reported 24,048 Chinese citizens were apprehended by Border Patrol at the southern border — up more than 10 times from the 1,970 arrests recorded during the 2022 fiscal year, and just 323 the year before. 

The number of Chinese nationals entering the US across the southern border has surged since 2021, amid a mass exodus from the oppressive communist country

A group of people, including many from China, walk along the wall after crossing the border with Mexico to seek asylum on October 24 near Jacumba, California

Chinese nationals have historically had a high success rate with asylum claims in America, and Beijing often refuses to accept deportation of its citizens whose asylum status is rejected.

The high success rate in remaining in the US has been a lure for many Chinese people to flee the communist country and seek a better life, following years of brutal pandemic lockdowns in China and a stagnating economy that has shaken faith in the ruling Communist Party.

Since Chinese citizens can fly into Ecuador without a visa, many are now taking the arduous 3,000 mile route through the Darien Gap to reach the US, a journey popular enough it has its own name in Chinese: walk the line, or 'zouxian.'

'This wave of emigration reflects despair toward China,' Cai Xia, editor-in-chief of the online commentary site of Yibao and a former professor at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, told the AP last year.

'They've lost hope for the future of the country,' said Cai, who now lives in the US 'You see among them the educated and the uneducated, white-collar workers, as well as small business owners, and those from well-off families.'

But the trend has drawn national security concerns from some officials, who fear some among the asylum seekers have nefarious motives.

Chief Patrol Agent Anthony Good, of the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector, told the Homeland Security Committee during a private hearing in September last year that his agents were 'trying their best to figure out why [individuals from other continents are] coming' but that 'information can be hidden' and 'their agendas, their ideologies, the reason for them coming could be missed'.

More successful asylum claims in the US are made by Chinese migrants than any other nationality, according to government data 

A group of people, including many from China, walk along the in California wall after crossing the border with Mexico to seek asylum in a file photo

Gloria Chavez, chief patrol agent for the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, also told the Committee in June that the massive surge in Chinese migrants had forced her agents to enlist a translation service, with each Chinese national taking up to seven hours to interview.

The interviews were shared with DailyMail.com by the committee earlier this month.

Its Republican chair, Mark Green, claimed the surge in Chinese migrants was a 'massive' national security concern.

He said agents were being 'overwhelmed', with many Chinese nationals being 'released into the interior with little consideration for their country of origin'.

Green blamed Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the target of impeachment by House Republicans, for making it 'clear to the entire world that our borders are open'.

He added: 'While it is true that some individuals may be seeking relief from authoritarian regimes, there is no way for our brave men and women on the frontlines of this crisis to adequately vet all of them before being effectively forced to release them—particularly when countries like China won’t allow us access to their various law enforcement databases.

'My Committee has been informed that some of these Chinese nationals have even been found to be affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and those are just the ones we’ve been able to vet.'

An asylum-seeking migrant from China holds up his passport and paperwork as he is photographed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in California earlier this month

The migrants are headed to the west coast because that's may be their final destination, Border Congressman Tony Gonzales (R, Texas) told DailyMail.com.

'As I've spoken to different agencies about why some communities (groups of migrants) go one place and others go another, one: it depends on what cartel controls that pipeline,' Gonzales explained.

'It's very clear that the Sinaloa Cartel is the one controlling that operation and sending Chinese more towards the California corridor...California/Arizona corridor that they control . That's half of the equation.

'The other half is where is the population going to go. Where are the large populations of Asian Americans tend to be-- in California, New York is another area, but that West Coast area is a big population center for them.'