Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

In 2023, US border officials apprehended more over 37,000 Chinese nationals on the southern border, more than ten times the number the year before.

The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that it has returned 116 Chinese migrants from the United States in the first "large charter flight" in five years.

The trip occurred over the weekend, just as Chinese immigration has become a hotly debated topic in the 2018 US presidential election.

"We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals who do not have a legal basis to remain in the United States," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

The government stated that it was working with China to "reduce and deter irregular migration and disrupt illicit human smuggling through expanded law enforcement efforts." It did not answer queries about how long the migrants had been in the United States.

In recent years, the United States has struggled to return Chinese nationals who do not have the right to stay in the country because China has refused to accept them back. The number of Chinese immigrants entering the United States illegally from Mexico increased dramatically last year.

In 2023, US border police apprehended over 37,000 Chinese nationals at the southern border, ten times the number the previous year

Chinese migration has increasingly become a rallying cry for Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, who have expressed concerns about why Chinese migrants are going to the United States.

Asian advocacy organisations are concerned that the language may incite harassment of Asians, despite the fact that migrants have stated that they are come to escape poverty and persecution. Earlier this year, the United States and China started collaboration on migration issues.

The Chinese government has stated that it is strongly opposed to "all forms of illegal immigration." In a statement issued in May, China's Embassy in the United States said the country's law enforcement was cracking down "hard on crimes that harm the tranquilly of the national border, and maintained a high pressure against all kinds of smuggling organisations and offenders."

Homeland Security stated that they are working with China on other removal flights in the future, but did not provide a timetable for when the next one would occur.

According to Thomas Cartwright of Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks deportation flights, a charter aeroplane transported a small but unknown number of deportees to Shenyang in northeastern China earlier this year.

Homeland Security officials could not indicate how many individuals were aboard the March 30 flight, although the Gulfstream V aircraft generally seats 14. Cartwright said the flight also stopped in South Korea before returning to the United States.

Ecuador was one of only two mainland countries in the Americas to offer visa-free entry to Chinese nationals and had become a popular starting point for Chinese migrants to then trek north to the US.

As of July 1, Ecuador has effectively reinstated visas for Chinese nationals after the South American country said it had seen a worrying increase in irregular migration.