Who Is Granted Asylum in the United States?

In late June, the U.S. carried out a rare mass deportation - to China. According to The Guardian, the flight bringing 116 Chinese citizens back to the country was the largest such operation in five years. While the Department of Homeland Security has had issues in the past deporting Chinese people, it now said it was working with China on more removal flights. Chinese migrants people have been making the trek north from Latin America recently - for example from Ecuador which has been offering visa-free entry. Advocacy organizations say they are escaping poverty and repression - and the difference between the two normally determines whether they can stay in the United States on humanitarian grounds.

As seen in the data by the Department of Homeland Security, more than 4,500 Chinese were granted asylum in the U.S. in the fiscal year of 2022. The second most common nationality to receive asylum in the U.S. that year were Venezuelans, followed by Salvadorians, Guatemalans and Indians. Overall asylum grants reached a low in 2020 and 2021 in the U.S. with just over 11,000 admissions in each year, but rose again in 2022 to more than 25,000 and in 2023 to more than 60,000.

According the The Economist, the number of Chinese asylum-seekers worldwide has skyrocketed since current President Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012. Around 70 percent of these people try for asylum in the United States. While the U.S. does not publish information on the ethnicity of asylum-seekers, Muslim Chinese minorities have been known to apply for and receive asylum in European countries. While the majority of applications are most likely Han Chinese, which make up 90 percent of the Chinese population, Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are still likely overrepresented among overseas asylum-seekers.