The number of migrants coming across the U.S. southern border has increased in recent years. However, it’s not only migrants from Mexico and Latin America. The number of people coming from China has also spiked.

In 2023, around 37,000 Chinese citizens were apprehended at the border. That is 50 times more than in 2021.

These Chinese citizens are using Ecuador as their corridor into the United States. Ecuador did not require people from China to have a visa in order to fly there, however, that changed on June 18.

Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility suspended its “visa waiver” into the country for Chinese nationals. It attributed the policy change to a “worrying increase” in numbers of people coming from China and not leaving.