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Congress gets no answer after asking if China sending its spies

Congress gets no answer after asking if China sending its spies

Chad Groening, Billy Davis
Mar 31, 2023

In a video by Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins, Chinese nationals are shown near the U.S.-Mexico border. A record number of Chinese have been apprehended during the new fiscal year, according to the U.S. Border Patrol.

Congress gets no answer after asking if China sending its spies

With a U.S.-China war looming over control of Taiwan, you don’t have to be a CIA analyst to be alarmed record-breaking numbers of Chinese nationals are sneaking into the United States but Homeland Security’s top boss proved useless when a U.S. senator sought answers about their potential threat to national security.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, where Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seemed ignorant about drug cartels and the U.S.-Mexico border, Sen. Josh Hawley used his question time to ask about Chinese nationals. That is a timely topic, too, since a record-breaking number of Chinese – more than 4,000 – have already been apprehended during the new fiscal year, according U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

U.S., Canada sign pact over illegals crossing north and south

Chad Groening, AFN.net

The flow of people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border gets all the attention but a Canadian says people are crossing into – and out of – his country, too.

According to the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, there is a jump in the number of individuals crossing into the country from the United States, particularly into the province of Quebec. At the same time, U.S. Border and Customs Protection reports migrants are crossing illegally into the U.S. from Canada at historically high levels.

President Biden has signed an agreement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that will allow Canada to send illegals back to the U.S. if they cross into our neighbor to the north. Asylum seekers who cross into the U.S. will also be sent back to Canada.

Brian Rushfeldt, a Canada-based conservative activist, tells AFN he is skeptical about any big change after both countries signed the Safe Third Country Agreement.

“They're saying that probably very little is going to change of the illegals entering Canada even with this new supposed agreement,” he says. “So I'm not sure the agreement even made sense to most people.”

Some of those Chinese nationals, or even most of them, are likely seeking political asylum in the U.S. to escape their totalitarian homeland. Others, however, could be potential operatives with training and orders from the Ministry of State Security, China’s spy agency.

In light of that, Sen. Hawley asked Mayorkas if the apprehended Chinese nationals are members of the Chinese Communist Party, which would surely be known by the U.S. government and mark them as potential spies for the Ministry of State Security.

Mayorkas did not directly answer, however. He told the Senator they are detained pending removal from the country if they are determined to be a “national security threat.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Hawley said, pointing to a photo of apprehended Chinese. “I asked if they’re members of the CCP.”

Mayorkas, however, repeated the same line verbatim about detaining people who are a national security threat.

Hawley likely chose to ask Mayorkas about China thanks to Fox News and one of its correspondents, Griff Jenkins. Jenkins has crisscrossed U.S. border states reporting on illegal immigration, and Congress and the public are aware of the Chinese nationals largely thanks to Jenkins’ reporting. In recent weeks he encountered a group of Chinese nationals (pictured above) walking freely down a dirt trial. A second video showed Chinese nationals stepping off a bus and being handed over to an unnamed non-profit that would care for them.

Ira Mehlman, of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, says it’s a known fact the Chinese government is “spearheading” espionage to undermine the United States.                                             

“We are talking about people who come from an adversarial country,” he warns. “And we should certainly expect that the leaders of those countries will take whatever opportunity they have to take advantage of our vulnerabilities."

Back in the Senate hearing, Mayorkas insisted Homeland Security is “focused” on China and its intentions but Hawley – like other Republican senators had done – pointed out Mayorkas appeared unable to cite date and was unaware of basic facts.

“You have exhausted me. You have exhausted this panel,” Hawley concluded. “You have exhausted the patience of the American people. You should resign."

Meanwhile, while Mayorkas seemed to toy with frustrated GOP senators this week, China's president Xi Jinping is warning his own people to brace themselves for war. The authoritarian leader "wove" a theme of war into four speeches he delivered to the National People's Congress in March, Foreign Affairs reported.