United States | Over the wall

America’s southern border has become a global crossroads

More migrants are arriving from China, India and Russia. Why?

Asylum-seeking migrants from China rest at a camp as they await processing by the American border.
Photograph: Getty Images
|Jacumba Hot Springs and Mumbai

SOME MIGRANTS huddled in tents provided by local volunteers. Others slept on the desert floor, facing fire pits burning rubbish. The camp, which in 2023 sprang up outside Jacumba Hot Springs, a town in San Diego County, California, was encircled by mountains, highways and the border wall. When Border Patrol agents came to take people for processing, they had to resort to nonverbal communication. “Sit if you have a passport.” “Step forward if you are travelling with children.” If the migrants were from Mexico and Central America, as most used to be, Spanish would suffice. Yet among those who had just walked across from Mexico were people from China, India and Turkey.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Over the wall”

From the January 20th 2024 edition

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