July 3 (UPI) — The United States has conducted its first “large” removal flight of Chinese migrants since 2018, the Biden administration said.
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that the Chinese nationals were removed by charter fight over the weekend in cooperation with the Asian nation.
“We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” Secretary of Homeland security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
“People should not believe the lies of smugglers.”
The announcement comes after President Joe Biden issued a proclamation June 4 temporarily suspending the entry of migrants into the country at the southern border when the daily average is more than 2,500 over a seven-day period.
The Biden administration has been plagued by GOP criticism over its handling of the border, which saw record encounters in December but has seen a drop since, seemingly in response to actions Biden as taken to address the surge.
The Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday that the weekend flight is part of his efforts to find areas of engagement with China amid fraught relations between the Washington and Beijing.
“Together, the United States and PRC are working to reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt illicit human smuggling through expanded law enforcement efforts,” the DHS said in a statement, referring to China by the initials of its official name, the People’s Republic of China.
According to statistics published by the GOP-led House Committee of Homeland Security in May, there have been more than 24,000 encounters of Chinese migrants at the southern border so far this fiscal year.