A Chinese migrant’s harrowing escape by boat to Florida amid crackdown on illegal immigration
A woman, part of a group of dozens of Chinese migrants smuggled to Coral Gables, said she had to leave after she spoke out against the Chinese government and faced blowback.
During China’s Covid lockdowns, a woman who had lived in a busy metropolitan area for most of her life and her then-husband quickly grew critical of the country’s “zero-Covid” policy. They spoke out but faced retaliation from authorities, leading her to flee to the U.S. last month.
The woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of further admonishment, didn’t take a typical route. Many migrants from China come to the U.S. through the Darien Gap, a stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama they cross on their way north. Instead, she took a boat from the Bahamas, she said.
She said she traveled last month, flying from China to London to the Bahamas, then boarding a boat to Coral Gables, Florida, in a quest to enter the U.S. and apply for asylum. She recalled encountering rough seas, remote islands — and then Border Patrol.
She was then detained at the end of her journey in Florida, she told NBC News exclusively.
“I knew it’s dangerous, but I had no other choice,” she said in Mandarin from Customs and Border Protection custody at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Florida, where she’s being held.
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