Summary
Undocumented Chinese men are alarmed by Trump’s plan to prioritize their deportation, citing baseless national security concerns about “military-age” immigrants.
Many fled political persecution or economic hardship and reject claims of being a threat.
Legal experts warn of racial profiling and expanded ICE raids, urging immigrants to know their rights. Deportation fears grow as China cooperates in repatriation efforts.
Chinese immigrants express anxiety over family separations and harsh consequences if returned, emphasizing they seek safety and stability, not harm.
Critics call Trump’s policies cruel and unjustified.
I’m not sure exactly what you want me to say about it… I didn’t feel the anecdote required full backstory, but here ya go:
I worked there years ago for a whopping 6 months, mostly removed from the work those migrants were doing. The owner of the place was a Chinese dual citizen with close ties to her homeland (she went to China 4 times while I was there). I observed these things happening, but frankly I have no idea if it was a legit program or human trafficking. I talked to most of the people that came through in that time (about 2/mth via text with google translate, because I don’t know enough mandarin to do it manually, but they were excited to talk to a native resident even through translate), and they all seemed happy and frankly excited for the opportunity to be there, and had free reign to travel onward to big cities when work came up in their social sphere, which they all did as soon as possible because I’m in a small town.
When I say that it’s probably illegal immigration, what I assume the owner was doing is signing work visas for people to bring them over totally legally, and then just not disclosing that they moved on to other employers after a month. Or maybe the visas were transferred to the new employer, idk. None of my business.
Many years prior to that job, when I was in highschool, I worked in industrial agriculture with half documented half undocumented Hispanic workers who were also happy to be there doing what they were doing, and the only thing any of them wanted to change was their legal status (they got paid same shit federal minimum wage as I did, which I know because my dad was the site manager). They were super sneaky, too, and didn’t speak English with any non-migrants at work… except me, despite being management’s offspring. Cuz I worked hard to keep up with them, and I’m cool and wouldn’t rat them out to management as speaking English while I muddle through terribly broken Spanish to keep the front up for them (plausible deniability is valuable at work). I’m chill with making management work harder to employ immigrants if that’s what they want (which they clearly did), but I’m also pretty chill with illegals, because the process to be legal is truly grueling at usually 20+ years.
So… none of my business. If anyone had ever said or even mildly indicated they weren’t happy with the arrangement, I’d have made effort to do something about it, but they didn’t and I’m not here to ruin lives over speculation.
