Ecuadorian authorities announced Tuesday the temporary suspension of visa waivers for Chinese citizens, citing a spike in Chinese illegal migration into and through the country, according to a statement.
“[T]he Government of Ecuador has decided to temporarily suspend the Agreement on the mutual suspension of the visa requirement for holders of ordinary passports between the Republic of Ecuador and [the People’s Republic of] China,” Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility announced.
The reason was “the unusual increase in irregular migratory flows of Chinese citizens, who have arrived in the country and have not left within the allowed period (90 days from their entry into the national territory) or who would be using Ecuador as a starting point to reach other destinations in the Hemisphere,” according to the statement.
Ecuador has seen “a worrying increase ” in Chinese immigration into the country, with about half of the immigrants overstaying and not departing the country through regular routes, the statement revealed. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Chinese ‘Cyber Police’ Agent Runs Online Network Helping Illegal Immigrants Flood Into US)
— Cancillería del Ecuador 🇪🇨 (@CancilleriaEc) June 18, 2024
Ecuador repeated its commitment to providing adequate security guarantees to visitors so that they do not fall prey to human trafficking or migrant smuggling, according to the statement. The authorities were also intent on “ensuring adequate national immigration control and precautions for the normal operation of air transport companies,” the statement noted.
A five-day anti-migrant-smuggling operation—Operation Turquesa V—coordinated by Interpol from Nov. 22 to Dec. 1, 2023, detected about 12,000 illegal migrants from 69 countries traveling along US- and Canada-bound smuggling routes across the Americas, according to a statement by Interpol.
Operation Turquesa reportedly has been running since 2019.
“Preliminary results of this year’s edition show a marked increase in trans-continental flows, particularly from China, which was the third most detected country of origin among irregular migrants, behind Venezuela and Ecuador,” according to the statement.
Interpol arrested 257 suspects and rescued 163 potential victims during the operation, the statement reported.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reportedly recorded 27,583 encounters of Chinese illegal immigrants in the U.S. between Oct. 2023 and Apr. 2024, up from 24,125 in the 2023 fiscal year and 1,987 in the 2022 fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government reportedly simplified the vetting process for Chinese illegal immigrants.
Some of the Chinese migrants are young, middle-class persons reportedly believed to be driven by extreme pessimism about the future of China.
