The Biden administration repatriated more than 500 Chinese nationals in the last year, laying the groundwork for systematic deportations across the Pacific Ocean.

On Friday, a large-scale deportation flight landed in China, the fifth such flight chartered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since June, when the high-volume flights re-started after a lull that started in 2018.

“The Chinese nationals removed this week to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) add to the hundreds who have been removed for not having a legal basis to remain in the U.S. This is the fourth such removal flight that we have arranged with officials from the PRC,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement.

Collaboration on deportations has been a testy issue between China and the United States for years.

Tensions between the two superpowers have ebbed and flowed on a range of issues including trade and Taiwan, making it at times more difficult to cooperate on unauthorized migration, an issue where both countries share some common interests.

For the United States, a country where border encounters are a core political liability, the ability to quickly remove foreign nationals — and to advertise those removals — is paramount.

China has an interest in reducing emigration both to maintain a young workforce and to protect its global image as an economic superpower.

But the two........

© The Hill