A mass exodus of civilians fleeing the Chinese communist regime is being carried out across the Darien Gap, an imposing obstacle on one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes. The remote, roadless crossing on the border between Colombia and Panama consists of more than 60 miles of dense rainforest, steep mountains, and vast swamps.
According to Panamanian government immigration data, the number of Chinese immigrants in the first two months of this year exceeded the total number of Chinese entering Panama in 2022 (a total of 2,000).
As migrants continue on their trek to the US-Mexican border, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 4,366 migrants from China encountered Border Patrol officials after crossing the southern border without authorization from October 2022 to February 2023. That compares with the 421 migrants encountered during the same period in 2021 and 2022.
Jorge Venture, a reporter for the subscription television news network NewsNation, tweeted on March 20, 2023: “I’ve been covering the border for a long time. I’ve never seen so many Chinese crossing into the U.S. illegally. Arrests of Chinese nationals by U.S. border authorities jumped more than 900 percent compared to last year.”
Individual stories among the headlines
A man and his teenage son recently arrived in the United States from China. They are among a growing number of Chinese migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border.
The man and his 16-year-old son traveled for more than 50 days from Hong Kong to Macau to Istanbul to Ecuador. From there, they traveled through six Latin American countries, including walking on their own through the Darien Gap on their way to the US-Mexico border.
He and his son arrived in February in Texas. They were detained by the U.S. Border Patrol and remained in U.S. government custody for five days. After their release, an immigrant advocacy group in Texas helped them continue to their destination, where a Catholic organization helped them settle.
In another case, a Christian from mainland China was once imprisoned for praying at a friend’s house. He later traveled to Serbia without a visa but was followed by Chinese communist security agents. Afterward, the entire family fled to Mexico, led by a group of illegal smugglers (known in Chinese as “snakeheads”).
“We were forced to swim across a river near the border,” said the bearded man with teary red eyes. “My wife and children do not know how to swim, and they almost drowned in the river’s fast current. After I pushed them to the other side, our family cried and knelt to thank God.”
The reality of their ordeal overcame his wife, and in bewilderment, he exclaimed to her: “We have gone through 11 countries, including Turkey, Ecuador, Panama, and Guatemala; we have finally broken with China, and we will stay in the United States even if we are to die here!”
Fleeing Communist China’s totalitarian rule
It has come to light that most Chinese refugees who have fled to the United States left their homes and abandoned their wealth and jobs due to a deep fear of Communist China’s totalitarian rule. Their ages range from under 10 to over 70 years old, and their social statuses include intellectuals, business people, workers, civil servants, and grassroots Party Cadres.
These people have provided many reasons for their defection: those who have been persecuted for heresy, others were framed for criticizing high-ranking officials, some were suppressed for defending their rights, many were imprisoned for resisting as an ethnic minority, there are individuals buried for taking to the streets to demand freedom, and others were arrested for breaking away from their Communist beliefs.
Fu Xiqiu, president of the China Aid Association, confirmed that their agency now receives weekly requests for assistance from Chinese who have just entered the United States; they seek help with their safety. “The key point is that the persecution of the Chinese by the Chinese Communist Party has made people in that country feel that they don’t want to live there anymore; China has become unfit for human life,” he said.
“They state reasons such as the economy is down, the air and food are poisoned, banks are robbing people’s money, the Party and government fining and arresting people at any time and for no reason, businesses having to do what the local Party secretary wants and there is no freedom of speech or basic human rights. Also, the natural environment is likened to that of a doomsday scene, and the social environment is worse than that experienced during the Cultural Revolution.”
He further elaborates: “The Chinese Communist Party preaches atheism, their philosophy of struggle between the weak and the strong and the jungle principle of natural selection. Consequently, the Chinese people are morally degraded and culturally ruined. People have no righteous thoughts, and there are no rules to follow. Society is permeated with evil, lust, violence, and aggressiveness.”
“Moreover, the Chinese Communist Party won’t improve; instead, it’s intensifying its efforts to culturally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically manipulate and destroy the Chinese people. There is still a group of sensible Chinese people who, amid a large group of people brainwashed by their Party, feel helpless, lonely, oppressed, and ostracized… so the only way left for them is to escape!”
“I hope the United States will be merciful and tear down the firewall and the rear wall blocking people’s avenue to escape, to fight with the Chinese people to get rid of the Communist Party — the cancer of the earth!”
