At the behest of the Biden administration, Border Patrol agents confronted with Chinese illegal immigrants were forced to give an easier path into the United States for the immigrants, with the agents asking them only five questions instead of the roughly forty they had previously asked.
That information was revealed in an April 2023 email sent by a Customs and Border Protection supervisor to a “master list” of roughly 500 Border Patrol agents, The Daily Caller, which reviewed the email, reported.
According to the former law enforcement official who supplied The Daily Caller with the email, smugglers are “coached from the beginning of the journey” on how to answer questions asked from them.
“It was almost immediate where [the Chinese illegal immigrants] knew what to say and what not to say,” he stated. The email adds that the illegal immigrants who correctly answer the five questions — which concern “Military Service,” “Universities,” “POB/Region,” “Employment” and “Political Party” — may be released into the United States.
“This policy change has accelerated the time it takes to process Chinese illegal immigrants — this doesn’t make America safer,” J.J. Carrell, a retired CBP deputy patrol agent in charge, told The Daily Caller. “The final result is that dangerous Chinese illegal immigrants will still be released into the U.S.”
“This is just the government covering their a**, so they can say vetted,” he continued. “I believe the government recognizes the threat of Chinese soldiers and spies that are pouring into America, and they want to try and identify those individuals. However, the same government does not want to stop the flow of illegal aliens or Chinese nationals — just the ‘bad ones,’ which is impossible.”
The email instructed agents to refer and transport any immigrants who answered affirmatively to any of the five questions to the tactical Terrorism Response Team, which interrogates Chinese illegal immigrants with potential terror ties or ties to the Chinese government.
“If TTRT determines that the individual is a security risk, that individual is turned over to Joint Terrorism Task Force for further investigation and deportation, “Carrel explained.
According to federal officials, a potential spying threat has been posed by Chinese nationals posing as tourists who tested the security of military bases as well as other sensitive sites — and roughly 100 reported incidents have occurred.
The officials explained that quite often the incidents occur in rural areas where tourists are not typically found, and the nationals address the security guards with what appears to be scripted language, not normal discourse. When they are stopped, they insist they have simply gotten lost.
As The Wall Street Journal reported in September, the Defense Department and FBI joined other agencies to study the issue, finding that the Chinese nationals were required to transmit the information they found back to the Communist Chinese government.
“The advantage the Chinese have is they are willing to throw people at collection in large numbers,” Emily Harding, a former deputy staff director at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Journal. “If a few of them get caught, it will be very difficult for the U.S. government to prove anything beyond trespassing, and those who don’t get caught are likely to collect something useful.”
Some of the Chinese nationals gained unauthorized access to military bases “by speeding through security checkpoints,” Sue Gough, a Pentagon spokeswoman, admitted, adding, “These individuals are often cited criminally, barred from future installation access and escorted off-base.”
When the Journal contacted the Biden White House and the Department of Homeland Security, they declined to comment.
Related: Roughly 100 Incidents Where Chinese Nationals Tried To Access U.S. Military, Sensitive Sites: Report