For one man, who identified himself only as “William” out of concerns for safety for his family, he was willing to travel nearly 16,000 miles to reach the United States. In 2023, the U.S. government arrested more than 37,000 Chinese nationals who crossed the border illegally, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That number is expected to increase this year.
William is one who made it through.
A pouch from Turkish Airlines, Japanese yen, and Mexican pesos are some of the memorabilia William kept. (Photo by Ethan Huang)
Originally from the Hunan Province, William moved to Beijing 17 years ago and worked in IT. But five months ago, William, his wife and two children decided to leave their home. Their route took them to four countries in two weeks.
They first flew to Japan, then Istanbul, and then Mexico City. From there, they took an Uber to Tijuana, where William began to strategize.
“On the first day at 3:00 p.m., I went to the border to figure out how to cross over from Tijuana to the U.S.,” he recalled. “I saw there was a hill, and I would walk over there to look around to make sure when I cross, I would be safe. Border patrol saw me later and I waved.”
He returned the next day at 4:00 a.m. with his family, taking an Uber to a village near the border before making the rest of the trek by foot.
“The driver knew our intention, and he refused our tips initially, but eventually accepted,” William said. They walked to the hill he discovered the day before and began to hike.
“We carried two luggages and backpacks, but because it was too heavy to cross the hill, we gave up one luggage,” he said. “I would feel sore while my wife would take care of our kids. There was a dog barking, and it was kind of scary.”
Two hours later, they made it down the hill, reaching the other side of the U.S. border. Then came the next step.
“When we arrived, we called 9-1-1,” William explained, saying he ordered two phones online ahead of the trip: one to use in Japan and one to use in the U.S. and Mexico. “Border patrol met us and gave us papers to read saying that we were illegally crossing and were caught, and we were all sent to a detention center.”
Here, they spent one night, where security checked their luggage, took their photos, and scanned their fingerprints. After being brought in by immigration authorities, many Chinese migrants like William would claim to be seeking asylum. Doing so, they hope to eventually receive a green card and even employment authorization for noncitizens.
“When we were detained, there were several rooms, and they gave us a yoga mat and sheets to stay warm,” said William. “I was separated from my wife and children, so I do not know what happened in other rooms. Around midnight, I was called by the people working in the detention center to complete registration.”
As a family, their paperwork was far more efficient than those traveling alone, and by 6:00 the next morning, they were released. They were taken to Ramada Suites in San Diego, where they were allowed to stay one night. The next day, William called an Uber, and he and his family were on their way to Rowland Heights in the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles.
Nathan and his fellow travelers received numerous bug bites when travelling through forests in South America. (Photo courtesy of Nathan)
William is just one of tens of thousands who undertook this journey. One 27-year-old, who identified himself as “Nathan,” arrived in the U.S. about a year ago. By the time he reached Texan soil, he had crossed through Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Mexico.
“Most of the countries I crossed through were incredibly poor,” he said. “Even if we paid to get information for how to get to the U.S., we would meet some bad people who would lead us to gangsters who might ask for more money, and even the police over there would give us a hard time.”
His modes of transportation included riding in the back of covered trucks, taking buses, riding canoes across rivers, and even horseback.
“The roads we walked were not great when I crossed from Colombia to Panama,” he said. “It took a lot of energy to cross the forest. Since it was raining 80% of the time, there were a lot of insects who were biting us.”
But how did he come across this information in the first place? Today, social media has become a powerful tool for migrants.
“I got this information from TikTok and YouTube and because China does not allow the internet to connect with overseas, we needed to use a VPN to bypass the Chinese government to use the internet,” Nathan said.
Professor Zhang recalls a hole in the side of the border wall where many migrants passed through. It would later be blocked on successive visits. (Photo courtesy of Zheng-sheng Zhang)
Zheng-sheng Zhang is a professor of Chinese at San Diego State University. Since the beginning of this year, he has been called multiple times by various news outlets ranging from CBS 60 Minutes to the Christian Science Monitor to help translate at the border.
“The two times I saw [Chinese] migrants, they were quite different,” he said. “The first group we saw with CBS were very middle class. Some of them looked like they just stepped off an airplane with their roller bags and so on… but the second time I went with the Christian Science Monitor, the group was very different… It’s more lower class and even blue collar. Quite a few of them were from rural areas doing farming.”
As he translated, he began to connect with many of the migrants, some even coming from other countries from beyond China.
“We saw one woman originally from Xinjiang, a Uyghur woman who came with a group of Turkish migrants, and I was able to talk to her in Chinese,” he said. “She declined to be interviewed more, and all the Turkish migrants also didn’t want to be interviewed. So on that [first] trip, there were no interviews with migrants.”
Instead, what he saw was changes in the landscape. He described seeing a “hole” in the side of the wall in February, where some migrants were easily able to slip onto the other side of the border. But by April, the hole was patched up.
“Because of the publicity of the CBS program, lots of pressure was put on both American immigration and also Mexican immigration,” said Zhang. “On the Mexican side, they set up tents and searchlights to sort of deter migrants from coming over.”
By then, the nearby hill (or mountain as Zhang described) to the wall’s east became the mode of passage for migrants like William.
Once they are past the border (even if they did so unlawfully), they are legally allowed to seek asylum, according to Jean Reisz, a professor at USC’s Gould School of Law and the co-director of the school’s Immigration Clinic.
“It doesn’t matter how you arrive in the U.S., it doesn’t matter what status you’re in, you can cross the border unlawfully and you can seek asylum,” said Reisz. “An asylee and a refugee have to show the same thing. They have to show they’ve been persecuted or will be persecuted by their home country’s government or [that it] won’t protect them from other people who are going to persecute them on account of their race or religion, their political opinion, their nationality or their membership in a particular social group.”
Reisz says that many people choose to cross illegally simply to save time.
“Part of the reason people are doing that is because at ports of entry, there is a long wait period,” she said. “Some may have to wait, for example, in a border town for months before the opportunity to present at a port of entry to seek asylum.”
Reisz says that once they are detained, asylum-seekers are able to be released on parole, sometimes wearing ankle monitors. As they wait for months and even years on end to appear in front of a judge, they are able to apply for an employment authorization and work permit if their asylum application is pending for longer than six months.
It is a long and arduous process, so why do people undertake this journey at all?
The migrant Zhang remembers traveling through Panama, crossing rivers and forests to reach the U.S. border. (Photo courtesy of Zhang)
Another migrant, who only wanted to be identified by her last name “Zhang” (no relation to Professor Zheng-sheng Zhang), currently resides in Phoenix, Arizona. She came to the U.S. in March of 2023 and is currently a housewife while her husband works with the Arizona branch of TSMC.
She is pregnant with her third child. While it was mainly her husband’s decision to make the journey to the States, she feels that there is more opportunity here for her kids than abroad.
“If my children do not come to the U.S., they’ll only [become] temporary workers,” said the migrant Zhang. “They will earn a little bit of money without any hope, just as very poor, basic workers. They do not have a choice to get educated.”
What is more is that her second child was born a few months before the removal of China’s one-child policy, and because of that she was issued a fine that she has yet to repay. Now, she has the freedom to have another kid, with the primary reason being that they have at least one that is born an American citizen.
In the same way, William’s hope for his children’s future is what drew him abroad.
“We did not have a legal identity in Beijing because we are from Hunan Province,” said William. “So, when my children grow up and go to high school, they cannot take their examination from high school to college.”
As the migrant Zhang elaborates, she only wants her kids to live a better life than her own.
“I only hope my children are able to learn and become well-educated,” said Zhang. “When [my kids] grow up, I also want to find a job to support the family, and my dream is to have a house and steady living.”
For William, he also came for more job opportunities, as the working conditions in China have grown increasingly unsustainable for him.
“In China, they do not pay overtime,” he said. “My job is in IT, and every day, I have to work at midnight, and in some emergencies, I have to work overnight without extra pay. Although the country has some policy for OT, the company ignores it. One year, I had over 400 hours of overtime, and I cannot complain. If we go to the court to complain, we cannot find any job in China in the future.”
William also cited how he is a fourth-generation Christian, and the control the government had over religious practice in China was somewhat challenging to live in.
It is such ideological factors that also brought many to America as well. Professor Zheng-sheng Zhang recalls some peculiar sights at the border wall. In particular, Chinese characters carved into the wall’s metal.
“We saw quite a lot of graffiti on the wall written in Chinese,” Zheng-sheng Zhang said. “At least one of them sort of denounced Xi Jinping.”
This represents one of the numerous reasons for those who wanted to make the excruciating odyssey to the U.S. To some migrants, political oppression was a notable barrier at home.
Nathan felt that he began to see beyond the walls of his country when using a VPN to reach international networks. Part of this was because during the pandemic, he grew cynical of his government.
“What made me feel uncomfortable was during COVID, I saw how inhumane [the Chinese government was] and it made a lot of people die,” he said.
He notably cites an incident in Urumqi, in which a fire broke out in an apartment building at a time when residents were not able to leave their homes due to the risk of COVID. He also referenced a case where a woman was found in chains in Xuzhou city, raising widespread discussion about the persistence of human trafficking in China.
“It made me see the government as something that doesn’t protect people,” he said. “I thought deeply about why I came to the U.S., because overall, I made this decision because I totally lack confidence in my country. If you cannot change the situation in China, all you can do is leave.”
William sits at the Herald Family Center office in Rowland Heights, recounting his story. (Photo by Ethan Huang)
William sat in a plastic white chair as he recounted a story. We met in the Herald Family Center office in Rowland Heights, a faith-based community center serving Chinese-speaking communities.
In his five months here, he has worked three jobs, including being a handyman and as a warehouse worker. For now, he and his wife are trying to learn English.
“My wife is planning on getting a nursing license, and I’m planning on getting a Masters Degree in computer science,” William said. “For my children, I do not know how to plan for them, but I will focus on continuing their schooling. For sure, they want to stay here. My oldest son said that studying in the U.S. is so easy, no burden, and happy.”
Most of all, William hopes to gain citizenship so that he could have the chance to freely travel between the U.S. and China in order to take care of his elderly parents.
Nathan, meanwhile, is traveling across the country. He currently works on repairing Bitcoin circuit boards, utilizing his refugee status and U.S. work authorization.
“This is not my long term plan. I want to learn something like getting a professional degree to stay in the U.S.,” he said. “I [want] to move my parents to live in a neighboring country [to China] like Thailand. That way, I can travel there to see them.”
For the migrant Zhang, she is just happy to enjoy life outside the pressure of work while spending more time with her children.
“Here [in the U.S.], on weekends we can enjoy life, even though there is a language barrier in Arizona, during Saturdays and Sundays, my whole family will go out,” she said.
According to Professor Zheng-sheng Zhang, there is always the chance that these new migrants may grow disillusioned with life in the U.S. Even so, he believes that Chinese-speaking communities serve as a life raft for these new migrants.
“As far as the migrants themselves, they may become disappointed… they may find life is a lot harder than they imagined,” he said. “But Chinese migrants are quite different from [other migrants] because there is more community support.”
While these migrants have entered the U.S. with little to nothing and a burden of uncertainty, they still live in the joys of the present. In October, William attended a National Day celebration for the Republic of China in Monterey Park. Settling into an Asian-dominated community, he feels content.
“I do not need to adjust a lot because we have the freedom to choose,” he said. “I attended a gathering for [National Day] celebrations in Monterey Park, and there were different kinds of parties and tents–people from China, people from churches. I feel so free.”
Interviews with William, Nathan, and the migrant Zhang were translated from Mandarin
Header Photo 1: Migrants in Colombia travel via covered truck. (Photo courtesy of Nathan)
Header Photo 2: Nathan needed to travel through the the forest to cross from Colombia into Panama. (Photo courtesy of Nathan)
Header Photo 3: Nathan drove through countries like Colombia in his journey to the U.S.(Photo courtesy of Nathan)
Header Photo 4: Migrants like Nathan needed to travel via horseback for some parts of their journey through Colombia. (Photo courtesy of Nathan)
Header Photo 5: Migrants wait on the coast of Colombia to take a boat out of the country. (Photo courtesy of Nathan)