China is slowing its efforts to repatriate Chinese nationals who are in the US illegally, a senior President Donald Trump administration official told Reuters, warning Washington was prepared to increase travel restrictions on the country if Beijing didn’t reverse course.
The new US threat towards China comes days before Trump’s planned May 14-15 visit to Beijing, where, among other issues, he is expected to raise the deportation issue during meetings with his counterpart Xi Jinping.
The trip is important for Trump, who is hoping to win trade concessions from Beijing that he can present to voters ahead of November’s midterm elections that polls suggest could deliver losses for the president’s Republican party.
Since returning to the White House early last year, Trump has threatened tariffs and sanctions on countries for failing to accept deportees, a central pillar of his campaign for the White House and hardline immigration policies.
China for years has resisted US requests to take back tens of thousands of its citizens who have overstayed or illegally entered the country.
When Trump took office, China suggested it was willing to repatriate “confirmed Chinese nationals” after verification. But Beijing has said doing so takes time.
After accepting about 3,000 deportees via charter and commercial flights in early 2025, China has scaled back co-operation in the past six months, the senior US official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about administration plans.
China “refuses to fully co-operate with the US to take back its citizens”, the official said, calling it a violation of China’s international obligations and responsibility toward its people.
The official said if China didn’t increase co-operation on deportations, the US would consider increased cash bonds accompanying visa applications, and denying more visas and blocking more entries at the border.
“Inaction by the Chinese government will jeopardise future travel for law-abiding Chinese citizens,” the official said.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Previously Beijing has said it opposes illegal migration, and calls it an “international issue that requires co-operation between countries”.
TENS OF THOUSANDS AWAIT REMOVAL
Trump has pursued a hardline immigration policy, including an aggressive deportation drive, revocations of visas and green cards, and checks of social media posts and past speeches by immigrants.
During former president Joe Biden administration’s the number of Chinese nationals illegally crossing the US southern border surged from negligible numbers to tens of thousands as China’s economy faced headwinds and US visas were harder to acquire due to Covid-era restrictions.
There are more than 100,000 undocumented Chinese nationals in the US, the official said. More than 30,000 have final orders of removal, and of those authorities have detained more than 1,500 awaiting deportation. Most in the last category have committed other crimes, the official said.
Independent estimates of the number of undocumented Chinese nationals in the US vary. The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) said in mid-2022 as many as 239,000 Chinese immigrants were not authorised to be in the country.
Other countries with large numbers of undocumented people in the US, including India, are fully co-operating with the US, the official said.
The US wants Beijing to provide travel documents and approve customs and border protection charter flights with deportees, paid for by the US, to land in the country.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act the US can place visa sanctions on countries deemed “recalcitrant” in complying with repatriation requests, a label the department of homeland security has routinely applied to China.
US authorities going back to former president Barack Obama’s administration have said they believe China slow rolls the issuance of new travel documents for the deportees because it doesn’t want to take them back or sees the issue as a useful point of leverage with Washington.
US law enforcement officials have told Reuters China at times seeks to link Washington’s requests on deportations to Beijing’s requests to extradite economic or political fugitives who have fled to the US.
Reuters
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