FLUSHING, N.Y.—After a monthlong journey that began on China’s southeastern seaboard and included getting stung by fire ants in Latin America, Audi Lin entered the U.S. from Mexico, got out of detention and made his way to New York.
A distant relative from Lin’s home province of Fujian picked him up at LaGuardia Airport and drove him straight to Flushing’s Chinatown, home to one of the largest concentrations of Chinese people in the U.S. Along the way, the relative told Lin about several Chinese websites and apps with job postings and information on hostel-like facilities that welcomed Chinese migrants. Many of them, like Lin, request asylum after handing themselves over to U.S. agents at the border, and are allowed to stay in the U.S. while they wait for immigration judges to rule on their cases.
By the time Lin’s relative dropped him off, he knew at least where he was sleeping for the night. Within a month, he found a job as a busser at a Fujianese-owned takeout joint in Harlem.
“Chinese people don’t end up at shelters,” said Lin.
In many ways, the experience of migrants from China, who increasingly endure arduous trips and arrive at the southern U.S. border, mirrors that of migrants from South and Central American countries. But once they arrive on U.S. soil, their paths begin to diverge.
Many Chinese migrants find jobs and housing more easily than arrivals from Latin America because they can tap a vast network of friends and relatives, who often were migrants to the U.S. themselves.
The path is by no means easy: New migrants are vulnerable to exploitation. Good-paying jobs are hard to come by and frequently involve working extremely long hours, although employers sometimes provide meals and housing.
The resilience of the U.S. economy—with wages growing and businesses continuing to hire—has made it possible for some migrants to jump-start their lives in the U.S. even as their numbers swell. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which counts the number of working immigrants regardless of their legal status, says the number has stayed above 30 million since February.
At least 1.7 million migrants have been apprehended at the country’s border with Mexico in each of the past three fiscal years, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most have come from Latin America, with the number of arriving Venezuelans surging to more than 200,000 in each of the past two years.
The number from China using that route has gone up too. Some 33,508 Chinese migrants were apprehended by authorities at the southern border in the government’s fiscal year starting last October through June, compared with 24,314 for the previous fiscal year. The fiscal year before that saw 2,176 apprehended.
Migrants such as Lin, who plans to argue for asylum on religious grounds, may apply for a work permit only after their asylum application has been pending for six months. They are not technically permitted to work until then, but many arrive with little savings and it is common for them to start working for cash soon thereafter.
New migrants often head to Chinese enclaves in New York and California, before getting connected to Chinese business establishments across the country. They fan out to Chinese restaurants and private homes as caretakers; some have even landed at Chinese-operated marijuana farms that have cropped up in states that have legalized cannabis.
Flushing, a sprawling Queens neighborhood with New York City’s largest Chinatown, has long been a magnet for immigrants.
“New immigrants know if they come to places like Flushing, Queens, they’ll be familiar with the signage and have an immediate community network,” says Mitchel Wu, Queens borough director for Chinese-American Planning Council, a social service agency.
A Customs and Border Protection official said that Chinese migrants often have a rough plan upon arrival in the U.S., having often spent more than $10,000 on their journeys, in contrast with many migrants from central America, who often pay much less. In an effort to discourage more Chinese migrants from coming to the U.S. through the southern border, the government recently deported 116 Chinese nationals back to China, the first such large removal operation by charter flight in years.
In Chinese enclaves such as Flushing, new services have sprouted up to assist the recent arrivals in navigating their new lives. Outside Queens Public Library, mom-and-pop-run establishments, known as “family hotels” in Chinese, advertise rates as low as $290 a month and common-area cooking facilities.
Many Chinese job-placement agencies have moved their services online. But at Red Apple Employment Agency, Chinese migrants can still seek advice from the owner, Jenny Geng, who came to the U.S. herself more than two decades ago.
“Those without proper status welcome,” reads one sign in Chinese on her wall, though Geng advises people to get work permits to make the job search easier. She charges $80 to $100 per job placement. Other services include assistance applying for health insurance and truck-driving licenses.
Gateway communities like Flushing don’t necessarily set up migrants for long-term employment or career success, warns CPC’s Wu. Often, he said, they push newcomers into a sort of working underclass from which it can be difficult to emerge.
Some migrant women, with few legitimate options, have ended up being forced into sex work. On 40th Road, off a main thoroughfare in Flushing, the number of Chinese women soliciting passersby has increased, according to nearby businesses.
Many Chinese migrants are still willing to risk coming to the U.S. because they see a brighter economic future than in their home country, which many fled due to economic hardship or repression by the Chinese Communist Party.
Jobin Cai, 33, who entered the U.S. through the southern border, first made his way to the large Chinese neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, where he lived temporarily with a cousin. He paid $500 dollars to intern for two weeks at a Chinese nail salon, then another $500 to learn from a sushi chef at a restaurant in Connecticut.
Neither training yielded a job, but then a Chinese friend introduced him to a Chinese-run auto factory in Michigan that was hiring. Cai figured the pay—$15 an hour—would be better than any restaurant job so he flew out immediately without a work permit. His conclusion after working six months is that life is easier in the U.S. than in China, where his restaurant business had collapsed during the pandemic.
“There’s a language barrier, but here you can make more and save,” he said.
Lin says the Harlem restaurant job helped him transition into his new life in the U.S. He is hoping to find a higher-paying job and dreaming about how to someday start his own business.
These days his income comes from brokering a few property sale transactions in mainland China—all done through the Chinese messaging app WeChat. He also helps Chinese friends and acquaintances transfer small sums of money to each other.
Lin pinches pennies on meals and cigarettes. He is $20,000 in debt for the cost of his journey to the U.S.; an immigration lawyer he hired is charging him another $12,000. “I haven’t even paid one-tenth,” he said. “But I came to the U.S. to try something new.”
Write to Chao Deng at chao.deng@wsj.com