Faces of Chinese Illegal Immigration

In late September, Jie Lijian (@jielijian) — who styles himself chairman of an overseas “China Democracy Party” group — was hospitalized again in New York. Photos posted by friends showed a rented basement. In interviews, he has said he entered the United States in 2019 by way of Africa and South America.

His diagnosis is a matter for the hospital record. What is worth recording is not the man himself, but a sequence that has become familiar: the person arrives first, public spending begins, and legal status is decided later. An uninsured American can be wrecked by one ambulance ride. An applicant whose case is still pending can already be inside emergency rooms and state programs paid for by taxpayers.

Walking the line

That sequence has numbers behind it. In fiscal year 2021, U.S. border authorities encountered only 342 Chinese nationals between ports of entry on the southwest border. In fiscal year 2023, the figure exceeded 24,000 — about a seventyfold increase. More and more people skipped ordinary visas, traveled through South America and Mexico, and reached the southern border. Chinese social media gave the route a name: zouxian, “walking the line.”

Arrival is only the start. An asylum case can sit for years. In those years, there are emergency rooms, public schools, and, for those who qualify, some state programs. The lag is the point: people arrive first, daily life starts first, status is decided last.

Border czar Tom Homan said recently, “You don’t bring tens of thousands of Chinese into this country from China without the coordination of the Chinese government.” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green has said at hearings that many of those crossing are military-age men, poorly vetted, then released into the country. National Border Patrol Council president Brandon Judd has told reporters that most Chinese crossers are single adult males, which alarms agents on the line.

Whether that equals Beijing shipping troops is not a matter of public court findings. The numbers are hard enough: a few hundred people a year became more than twenty thousand. That is not a trickle of isolated runaways.

Court dates and slogans

One kind of figure puts anti-communism in the bio and court dates on the same feed. Zheng Cunzhu (@cunzhuzheng) has about 46,000 followers on X. His profile states that he represents clients at USCIS interviews and in immigration court. On the same timeline he posts asylum grants, habeas petitions, and pending or border-crossing cases, and explains the “subjective fear” element of U.S. asylum law — including the advice that applicants should make “fear” clear in court.

He has written that even those who entered illegally still have the right to seek asylum, and that their claim can be “more legitimate” than that of people who come and go on lawful visas. He has also joined letters asking for temporary protection for applicants from communist countries so they can keep living and working in the United States. All of that is on his public account. Open the page: political slogans and hearing dates sit side by side.

Pending status, open doors

Another kind of figure shows how pending status meets a state doorway. Kui Yang (@KUI__YANG) has about 140,000 followers on X. He has written that while his asylum case was pending and he had no Social Security number, his autistic child’s school held an IEP meeting and officials pointed him to California’s Regional Center for special-care registration, along with options such as housing aid, broadband, and a parent applying as a paid caregiver. He also wrote that the family used medical care and special education and did not apply for those cash benefits.

Many California programs look at residence and eligibility, not at whether the federal government has finished the immigration case. Once the menu is on the table, the next person does not have to ask again.

The camera as advertising

What turned the route into advertising was the camera.

Public reports say the man known as “Ding Pazi Gold-Medal Lecturer” reached Los Angeles around 2022 and filmed himself collecting free meals at shelters and food lines. His Douyin account mortalman recently showed about 1.17 to 1.19 million followers. In late 2023, the “American begging” videos spread across Douyin, Bilibili, and Chinese news sites; reports put him over a million fans. His avatar uses the PRC flag. Whether he has filed for asylum is a claim circulating online; this article has not seen an official receipt, so it is not stated as fact.

The pictures were enough: in America, you can skip work and still say on camera, “Got food again.” On X someone asked, “I watch the lecturer beg — why is there meat every day?” The line is harsh. It is also what domestic viewers saw.

Xiao Tang arrived in 2022, sold scallion pancakes, livestreamed, and put high prices, income, and luxury cars on screen. Related Douyin accounts include 美国做酱香饼的小唐 (about 77,000 followers) and 小唐在洛杉矶送酱香饼; other similarly named accounts range from tens of thousands to more than 100,000. A 2025 report put Douyin and YouTube together at about 300,000. Chinese portals, local outlets, and short-video platforms took turns calling him an overseas success story with monthly income in the tens of thousands of dollars — and then reporting that police had taken him in and that he had posted bail.

In circulating livestream clips he talks about raising military funds and greeting “our own people” near the Golden Gate. What he meant is his problem. What works on a Chinese audience is not a court docket. It is exposure: the stall, the car, the pancake, the handcuffs, then back on camera. Some users named him and the lecturer outright, saying ICE should pick up both — “not only did they sneak in, they love the PLA.” The emotion is theirs. The traffic is real.

The magnet

The two men do not have to know each other, or persuade American voters. Their audience is inside the Great Firewall. Chinese platforms turned shelter meals and street stalls into a serial. What later arrivals see is not immigration law. It is: go, and there is food; go, and you can film; go, and you can get famous. Smugglers do not need a new script. The years when border numbers jumped were the same years this content was recycled across Chinese apps.

The first group tells people the case is a right and points to the state door. The second group ships American shelters and street scenes onto Chinese phones. If removals and eligibility rules do not stick, the content chain keeps working as a magnet. Emergency rooms, special education, and shelter beds take the strain. Legal immigrants and the local poor move back in line. Taxpayers pay.

Homan can ask who is a security threat. Taxpayers should ask something simpler: why is the window still open to the camera?

The United States can treat emergencies. It can educate children as the law requires. Neither obligation means work permits, status, and benefits that require eligibility can be postponed without end. Once delay becomes habit, the public budget is underwriting smugglers and short video. To kill the magnet, legal and illegal, decided and pending, emergency care and long-term benefits have to be separated in practice. If they are not, the next “got food again” clip will be filmed, and the next group will get on the road.

Accounts cited

• Jie Lijian: x.com/jielijian
• Zheng Cunzhu: x.com/cunzhuzheng
• Kui Yang: x.com/KUI__YANG
• Gold-Medal Lecturer (Douyin, ID mortalman): douyin.com profile
• Xiao Tang (one Douyin profile among several similarly named accounts): douyin.com profile