The rep and rhetoric on immigration is a familiar one now. Migrants as far south as Central America have braved the journey to reach the US border with hopes they’d be admitted through asylum, or sneak in through other means. Some have been well intentioned dreamers, with a desire to work hard in the USA, while some have been cartel or gang connected, hoping to wreak havoc and expand criminal enterprise.
But now there’s another group. The Chinese. The Globe and Mail tells a story of a Chinese man who flew into Ecuador, and began the long arduous journey to the USA from there. He got to Colombia where the Darrien gap and rainforest separated the nation, and the continent, from Panama. The 60 mile journey through that stretch has no roads nor sidewalk, just some trail made by previous journeymen. The man says he fleeing from a president who has created an increasingly divided world. Now, the man feels, upward mobility and opportunity is close to impossible, and poverty for millions remains dominant and unchangeable.
And finally, the overly harsh covid lockdowns had Chinese citizens wanting to risk it all for some semblance of freedom. Even when those lockdowns were somewhat abated, the government gave business owners no help in rebuilding their lives financially. Declaring bankruptcy is not a thing in China.
Over 1,600 Chinese people have made the journey along the Darien Gap, so the man is not alone. They’re the fourth largest nationality to make that trek in the last three months, and the numbers have exploded in that timespan. This is a new phenomenon. In these three months alone, twice as many Chinese crossed through the gap than had in the entirety of last year.
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