Lihua Wu’s journey to the United States began when she was scrolling past the words “The Route”, one of several common hashtags on Douyin, the Chinese counterpart of TikTok.

The hashtag is used to advise migrants on the irregular overland trek across Latin America to the United States, also known online as “the Big Beautiful”.

By the time the single mother and her five-year-old daughter were apprehended by US Border Patrol on a dirt road near the US-Mexico border in April, Ms Wu said, she had relied on social media for detailed instructions for her trip, including what footwear she needed and how to find and pay for a reliable local guide.

The difficulty of obtaining US visas and the economic after-shocks of China’s COVID-19 lockdowns, have led to a sharp increase in Chinese nationals presenting at the US-Mexico border.

Some people arriving at the US-Mexico border, including Ms Wu, learned online about migrants, immigration experts, attorneys as well as current and former US officials.

Over the course of three weeks photographing and reporting from a remote border stretch in south-eastern Texas, Reuters witnessed hundreds of Chinese migrants crossing into the United States and interviewed more than two dozen of them in Mandarin.

All of the people who were interviewed said they got the idea to take the land route to the United States on social media and drew on influencers, private groups and comments to plan their trips.

Around half said they were small business owners in China, ranging from running online stores, a sheep farm, and a movie production company.

Some wore crosses and carried Chinese-language bibles. They said they were Christians who felt they could not freely practise their religion at home.

China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom but, in recent years, critics said Beijing had tightened restrictions on religions because they were seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.

Migration to US escalates

An increasing number of Chinese nationals are making the 3,700-kilometre, irregular journey overland to the US-Mexico border after flying to Ecuador, where they can enter without a visa.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said the government opposes illegal migration, which “is an international issue that requires cooperation between countries”.

It did not respond to a request for comment on the issue of religious freedom.

The short video app Douyin — which is owned by ByteDance — is one of the main sources of the Chinese tech giant’s revenue overall. 

More than 6,500 Chinese nationals were apprehended at the US-Mexico border in the six months after October 2022, the highest on record, and a more-than-15-fold increase over the same period a year ago, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.

Although just a sliver of the hundreds of thousands of migrants arriving at the south-west border, Chinese people were the fastest-growing demographic in those six months, Chief Border Patrol (CBP) data showed.

CBP agent Gloria Chavez tweeted in March the increase was “creating a strain on our workforce, due to the complexities of the language barrier & [it] lengthens the processing”.

The border patrol said it worked with inter-agency taskforces to track increasing migration and target “transnational criminal organisations, who are smuggling Chinese migrants, specifically”.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Homeland Security — which oversees CBP — said social media and other online platforms have increased smugglers’ access to potential migrants, creating an environment ripe for manipulation, which the agency has tried to combat with social media campaigns.

Even before her business collapsed, Ms Wu said she had considered emigration as an escape from the discrimination she said she experienced as an unmarried, single mother.

Her decision to leave China solidified during a COVID-related lockdown that devastated the online makeup wholesale business she ran from the eastern city of Yiwu.

Chinese migrants crossing the US-Mexico border

Many migrants arriving at the border said they found out about an irregular migration route to the United States through South America on social media.

Some say broad COVID-19 lockdowns in China contributed to their decision to leave.

When COVID-19 controls curbed package deliveries in China, Ms Wu said her sales slumped from around six million yuan ($1.3 million) to one million yuan ($217,808).

Ms Wu initially thought about getting a US tourist visa and overstaying, but a travel agent advised her she would unlikely get a visa as a single mother.

Refusal rates among Chinese nationals for the most common US visitor visas reached 80 per cent in fiscal year 2021 and more than 30 per cent in 2022, the two highest years on record, according to State Department data.

While US visa issuance, globally, has mostly recovered to pre-pandemic levels, the number of US visas issued to China travellers last year remained 90 per cent below 2019’s pre-pandemic levels.

Visa holders and people crossing the border can request US asylum on arrival if they fear persecution at home.

Asylum seekers from China have won in US immigration court 58 per cent of the time, according to US Justice Department data.

The State Department said 2021 and 2022 “were not standard years”. It said visa issuances were expected to increase as China “catches up on its passport backlog and air travel resumes after the end of the zero-COVID policy”.

Other Chinese nationals, such as Ms Wu, didn’t wait.

Scrolling through her social media feeds, Ms Wu came across “Baozai”, an internet personality who gained tens of thousands of followers on Douyin, Xigua Video, YouTube and Twitter by posting videos about his migration to the United States.

Reuters was not able to independently confirm Baozai’s identity and, in messages to Reuters, he denied being an influencer and said he was just a migrant.

Baozai’s original account “Baozai adventure the world alone” is shown as “blocked” on Douyin for violating “community self-discipline regulations”.

He is now posting under a new account with the same name on Douyin, sticking to content about his life in the United States.

Douyin did not respond to a request for comment on Baozai.

Ms Wu said she sold her secondhand BMW and borrowed about 10,000 yuan ($2,180) from family and friends.

She and her daughter flew to Ecuador — where Chinese nationals can enter visa-free — and, acting on advice she found on Douyin, sought out a vaccination for yellow fever.

It was a good idea before heading into the treacherous jungle region on the border of Colombia and Panama, known as the Darien Gap, she had learned.

At the clinic in Quito, Ms Wu found a group of Chinese migrants who had contacted a local Colombian guide known only by his first name, “Carlos”.

“He is an internet celebrity in China,”  Ms Wu said.

Ms Wu and several other migrants said Carlos and his associates charged around $US1,230 ($1,852) per adult and $US700 per child to arrange travel and hotels from Ecuador to Panama, including a guided trek through the Darién Gap.

Jungle tents and horses were also available for part of the trip for an extra fee,  Ms Wu and the other migrants said.

Chinese migrants crossing through the Darién Gap

The number of migrants from China crossing the Darién Gap as a route to the US-Mexico border spiked in the first three months of 2023.

A Reuters reporter contacted a Colombian man through a number shared on the Douyin app, who answered when addressed as Carlos.

However, Carlos declined to give his full name and said he did not illegally smuggle anyone across borders nor take money from migrants.

He said he did help some Chinese people looking for bus and ferry tickets.

“Last year I did a favour for a Chinese man who was lost. I helped him find a ride and, then, through that, my number was shared,” he said.

He said he refers people who call a friend in Ecuador who is a bus driver, whom he did not identify.

“I don’t accompany anyone. I don’t want any problems with my country or with the law,” he said.

Reuters also found other social media accounts giving advice to people in Mandarin on how to cross the US-Mexico border.

An April 7 Twitter post from an account called Lee Gaga said smugglers marked the location of US Border Patrol agents on maps and advised migrants on how to surrender to them.

In posts and in messages exchanged with Reuters, the Twitter user identified as Lee Gaga said he was in the New York City area after a 37-day journey.

“Of course, you can try and run, but that’s not recommended,” the post said.

Twitter is blocked in China, but users may be able to access the platform through VPNs — virtual private networks — that allow internet users to access overseas sites barred by authorities.”

The Twitter poster went on: “I was released only after three days and three nights. I got lucky because the border policy has been good lately.”

Reuters