If you block them by land, they will try by sea. The latest clash between federal maritime agents and international smugglers off the Atlantic coastal waters of Florida highlights the grave national security threat posed by America’s thousands of miles of unguarded beaches.
The smugglers were accosted as they prepared to pull onto land in quiet St. Lucie County, located approximately two hours north of Miami.
“US Customs Air and Marine Operations agents stopped the boats… as they neared Fort Pierce Inlet,” Drug Enforcement Administration agents wrote in a criminal filing, the paper relates. “The three vessels were carrying a combined total of 31 Chinese migrants, including a child, and 168 kilograms of cocaine, the complaint states.”
The successful action by US agents came as a result of an investigation into a “transnational criminal organization” based in south Florida. But while cocaine smuggling has been a persistent issue since the 1970s and longer, the new human trafficking route from China to the Bahamas and then into the American heartland via the Sunshine State marks a growing danger in the ongoing US immigration crisis.
A February NBC News article that predictably casts Chinese illegal aliens in a favorable light in the process reveals how China is increasingly relying on the Bahamas as a transit point on the way into America.
A Chinese “migrant” who didn’t want to be identified told the network how she got from Asia to the sunny shores of Florida. “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 US and apply for asylum. She recalled encountering rough seas, remote islands – and then Border Patrol.”
The return of President Donald Trump to the White House dampened her plans for asylum, NBC observed. She wasn’t the only Chinese national rounded up in Coral Gables.
“The woman from China was among 30 people taken into custody in Coral Gables as part of an investigation into a possible human smuggling or trafficking operation, authorities said. Twenty-one of the individuals were from China,” NBC wrote.
The number of Chinese illegals entering Florida is rising fast.
“For Chinese migrants in particular, the number apprehended in Miami so far for fiscal year 2025, which began in October, has already reached almost three-quarters of what it was in 2024,” the network noted. That was only four months into the fiscal year.
“Florida has seen an influx of Chinese nationals since 2020, the start of the [coronavirus] pandemic,” The Miami Herald reported in February. “In 2020, Florida Border Protection officers interacted with 406 Chinese migrants, according to US Customs and Border Protection data. By 2024, that number jumped to 723 – a 78 percent increase.”
The paper cites experts who say there are two crucial reasons for the new Bahamas approach.
“President Trump’s tightening of the US borders has made the land-based route much more difficult, leading smugglers to turn to the sea. Finally, Ecuador, which has been a jumping-off point for migrants, no longer allows visa-free travel for Chinese nationals, something The Bahamas does,” The Herald writes.
All this comes as the Bahamas, a sovereign nation located only some 50 miles from the coast of Florida, strives for ever closer economic ties to the Asian communist goliath that is widely perceived to be America’s number one geopolitical foe.
“The People’s Republic of China has been making diplomatic, economic and even military and quasi-military inroads into the Caribbean, South and Central America for the past couple of decades,” retired Rear Adm. Peter Brown, former Homeland Security advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News in April.
The network notes how highly China values the tiny island nation located just off the continental United States.
“China has invested heavily in the Bahamas through a range of… high-profile projects, including a $40 million grant for a national stadium, a $3 billion mega-port in Freeport, and $40 million for the North Abaco Port and Little Abaco Bridge,” Fox detailed.
In a February op-ed published in The Nassau Guardian, the largest newspaper in the Bahamas, Chinese Ambassador Yan Jiarong stressed China’s determined efforts to grow its footprint in Latin America and the Caribbean, right on America’s doorstep.
“Since 2012, China has been the second largest trading partner of Latin America. In 2024, the trade volume between China and Latin America exceeded US$500 billion, a year-on-year increase of six percent,” Jiarong wrote.
“By the end of 2023, China’s direct investment stock in Latin America and Caribbean amounted to US$600.8 billion, making Latin America and Caribbean the second largest destination for China’s overseas investment.”
The ambassador made sure to state that no neighboring nation should be alarmed by this development.
“Other countries should take China’s partnerships with The Bahamas, the Caribbean and Latin America countries in a more open and inclusive way. After all, the world has ample space for all nations to thrive together,” he added.
Illegal aliens from China certainly are taking advantage of the partnership with the Bahamas.
“One of the alleged smugglers, Bahamian national Demetrius Luciano Kemp, admitted to agents that he was paid $2,000 for the trip and was expecting an additional payment after dropping the migrants off ‘anywhere he could, whether at a beach or an inlet,’” The Herald reported.
On the Atlantic side of the state, that’s 3,341 miles of open beachfront awaiting him and his Chinese human cargo.