US deported Chinese migrants on charter flight, Homeland Security says

The department did not specify how many people were on the flight.

The United States deported Chinese people who sought to enter the country illegally back to China over the weekend in the first large charter flight since 2018, the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday (Jul 2).

The department did not specify how many people were on the flight.

The United States and China are working on reducing illegal migration and combating human smuggling, DHS said.

"We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States," said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. "People should not believe the lies of smugglers."

The difficulty of obtaining US visas and the economic aftershocks of China’s COVID-19 lockdowns led to a sharp increase in Chinese nationals presenting at the US-Mexico border.