Thousands of Chinese enter the US through a hole in the border wall – thanks to TikTok, Samsung heir is cleared of stock manipulation charges

The sun has barely risen when the first group squeezes through a hole in the border wall between the US and Mexico. Most of them: Chinese. Some with rolling suitcases, after a direct flight from China to Mexico, others with dusty backpacks, after a trip through Latin America.

An unexpected sight for the team of the Australian channel CBS News, which immediately positioned itself in the lead for four days. The journalists saw more than 600 people – both adults and children – bridging the gap uncontrollably. Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi spoke with some migrants, sometimes with the help of an interpreter.

For example, with a Chinese man with a university degree who hopes to find work in Los Angeles. He reports that his journey from China to the US took 40 days and took him through Thailand, Morocco, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

Most of them had contact with smugglers in Tijuana, Mexico. They had to pay $400 per person for the one-hour trip to the hole. Just a fraction of a much more expensive trip: A factory worker tells CBS she sold her house to pay the $14,000 for the trip to the US.

She’s not the only one daring to make this expensive journey into the unknown: according to US Customs and Border Protection, 37,000 Chinese citizens were caught illegally entering the US from Mexico last year. That is fifty times more than two years earlier.

Escape the repression

The migrants cite China’s increasingly repressive political climate and sluggish economy as reasons. The Covid lockdown in particular, which lasted an extremely long time in China, has left its mark. A 37-year-old woman says she had to give up her childcare business. But she left behind even more for her trip to the US: her two small children. She left them at home with her family.

There are many reasons why she decided to travel to the US, she says. Not just work, but especially freedom.

Most migrants found out about this particular hole in the wall through social media. Specifically: on TikTok. There you will find step-by-step instructions on how to organize a smuggler and find the loophole. After the gap, the migrants walk about a half mile along a dirt road before waiting in a line for the U.S. Border Patrol to arrive. They surrender there.

The environment looks like a messy moonscape. Littered with trash and abandoned tents, CBS News writes. Jerry Shuster has been angry about this for months. The 75 year old retired man owns this land. He rages:

It started in May when he saw smoke rising on his property. When he went to investigate, he discovered migrants who had set fire to his trees to keep warm. Four months ago this happened again. He asked people not to burn his trees. When they surrounded him, he went home, grabbed his gun and shot into the air. He was subsequently arrested and his weapon confiscated.

He himself is an immigrant from Yugoslavia. But he didn’t kick down any doors to come to the US. He came through the main entrance. Not so with the migrants on his property. Sometimes he sees as many as 3,000 people crossing his property every week.

Fewer and fewer visas are being issued

Two hours after the migrants arrived, the border patrol arrived, and CBS continues to report on the situation on the ground. Instructions were broadcast live in Mandarin via loudspeaker.

From Shuster’s property, they are driven to a detention center near San Diego, where they are monitored. They can usually leave prison within 72 hours and apply for asylum in the US.

Millions of Chinese have been able to enter the United States for years with a visa that allows them to study, work or travel there. However, due to increasing tensions between China and the US, these are becoming less and less discussed, it is reported.

As CBS writes, the US issued 2.2 million temporary visas to Chinese citizens in 2016. In 2022 there were only 160,000.

Hole in the wall has been known for a long time

And so many Chinese resort to the last option: crossing the border illegally. There are actually official entry points along the border, but the wait time before you get an appointment there is between three and four months. Bridging the gap – thanks to precise TikTok instructions – therefore seems to many to be the easier route to the promised land.

CBS News wanted to know if Shuster never reported there was a hole in the wall. The authorities already know about it, he says. He was told to call Washington DC.

CBS News did that. U.S. Customs and Border Protection told them its officials did not have the authority to stop people from going through the hole. They can only arrest the migrants after they enter the country illegally. However, it is theoretically possible to close the gap. The measure would be at the top of their priority list. What’s still missing is money from Congress.