Nearly 700 migrants from the People’s Republic of China have been apprehended in just one week for illegally crossing the California border from Mexico, according to a new report.

The number only includes those busted in the San Diego region during the third week of April.

Breitbart News reports:

A CBP source, not authorized to speak to the media, told Breitbart Texas the number of Chinese migrants apprehended represents a more than threefold increase from the same time last year. The source told Breitbart that China is now within the top ten nationalities encountered by the Border Patrol along the southern border. The bulk of the Chinese nationals are released into the United States almost immediately the source says as China adamantly refuses to take their citizens back.

“We have only conducted one repatriation flight back to China recently,” the source lamented. “Until that changes, unless we have specific derogatory information about an individual, we are releasing. There’s just no other option.”

The agency remains baffled by the continued increase in Chinese migrant arrivals. Twice as many PRC nationals entered Southern California during the third week of April than the entire 2021 fiscal year when a total of 342 PRC nationals were encountered by the Border Patrol along the entire Southwest border. According to the source, intelligence debriefings yield little information about the migrants and their purpose for entering. The language barrier and the sheer volume of crossings and apprehensions is a major challenge according to the source.

“We want to focus on the threats posed by the Government of China and not cast aspersions on all the people of China, but governments are people and at this point,” the CBP source told the outlet. “We are in the dark concerning who is a foe and who is a friend.”

Breitbart noted that during the first six months of the 2024 fiscal year, which began in October, CBP has apprehended apprehended 24,296 Chinese migrants, an all-time high.