Stay or go? Under Trump, the dream fades into the dream of the Chinese who hike to us

When Pan decided to leave his hometown in early 2023, he firmly believed that his future no longer belonged there.

When he traveled to the United States, he dreamed of a free society, a more fair economy and a dignified life – he said he could never claim in China that his house was forcibly demolished by the local government in order to pave the way for real estate development.

In pursuit of this dream, he embarked on a journey of thousands of miles from China to Ecuador in 2023, and since then he has hiked the jungle as part of his long trek. About two months later, he finally arrived in the United States.

Pan is a spoken man in his 50s who is from a small village in Jiangxi Province in eastern China and is one of the thousands of Chinese citizens on the same journey in recent years.

They are called Zou Xian Ke, or “those who walk the line,” representing a new wave of immigration, driven by authoritarians’ tightening at home, while belief (sometimes naive, often desperate) is that America can still provide fair shots in a better life.

Their Exodus reasons vary, but their experiences on American soil once followed certain trends: Many ended up being linguistically isolated, burdened with debt, and survived the show work as they waited for the shelter to claim to crawl over the overwhelming immigration system.

Some people are still hopeful. Others are disbanding.

Now, all of them live in the long shadow of President Donald Trump’s political return – during which time, the United States and China have grown in recent years.

Pan is one of several Chinese immigrants I first met two years ago. Like many groups he travels with, he now works in a Chinese restaurant and even when he returns home, he takes pride in his knowledge of agriculture.

In the United States, these skills cannot be translated because the soil conditions are different and he cannot speak English. There was almost no currency in previous lives.

For a while after arriving, Pan wandered from the city, sleeping on borrowed couches or sleeping with other immigrants. Eventually, he landed in Barstow, California, a dusty industrial town.

His life today is bound to a radius. He cooked in the restaurant during the day, sometimes waited for the table in the restaurant, had videos with his wife and children in China at night, and repeated routine the next day. He lives in the room attached to the kitchen.

To the outsider, or even his family, Pan’s life seems monotonous. But for him, this is not defined by what is missing, but it no longer exists. No land seizures. No intervention in the officials. Don’t be afraid of arbitrary punishment.

“My family doesn’t understand,” he said with a half-smile. “They asked me why I stayed with a comfortable life. But here, even if it was simple, it was mine. It was free.”

Pan’s sense of freedom is quiet but stubborn. Two years ago, in a narrow hotel room in Quito, Ecuador, he told me on the eve of his journey that it would be worth it even if he died on the way.

He still said the same thing. He repeated: “All of this is worth it.”

Like many new immigrants, Pan has no meaningful social circles – increasing linguistic and cultural differences challenges limiting his life to interactions with fellow immigrants.

Sometimes he travels to Los Angeles to attend protests outside the Chinese consulate. He acknowledged that this part was strengthening the shelter claim by establishing a record of public political dissent. But this is also because, after decades of silence, he can.

On June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre was the date when authorities scrubbed from China’s public memory – he stood outside the consulate again, shouting anti-CCP slogans. That day, among the familiar crowd, he found James.

A young man in his 30s praised from western China, James traveled through the Darién chasm from Ecuador to the U.S. border. But if Pan’s story is one of the quiet Stoics, James’ story is more dynamic and restless.

After being released from the U.S. Immigration Detention Center, James bounced between cash shows at Monterey Park, most of China’s suburbs east of Los Angeles. He ended up buying a van, driving to Palm Springs, and taking his livelihood and home both as his home.

The van was filled with sleeping bags, gas tanks and portable chargers – that’s all he was happy with his life. During the day, he serves food around the city. At night, he parked his car outside the 24-hour gym and the windows opened.

James has always been a liar in China. But after Covid impressed economic and political repression, he had little room to breathe and decided to leave.

James told me: “At least your hard work here brings hope, but when you come back to China, you can work over a dozen hours a day and you can’t see the future.”

But, just one person is not enough. For nearly all newcomers, including those who have James and Pan and Pan have a faith in their life in America, Trump’s political return brings back a shocking sense of instability.

In the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attacks in southern Southern California, Trump has continued to push for the continued push to deport undocumented immigrants, and intensified U.S.-China tensions, including the battle for trade tariffs, have deepened the paranoid climate.

As I reconnected with the immigrants who first met in 2023, there was a clash between protesters and government police forces, with the recent ice attack in downtown Los Angeles.

The raid is part of the president’s goal to carry out “the biggest deportation operation” in U.S. history – a promise that helped him win the White House again last year. A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted in early June found that 54% of Americans said they approved his deportation policy.

The government said its raids are primarily targeting people with criminal records, although critics say innocent people are being caught on the drive-stimulating anxiety for immigrants.

Almost all immigrants I re-established hold the so-called Employment Authorization Document (EAD), which allows them to work legally in the United States but have not yet obtained an official asylum status. In Trump’s massive ice war movement, people who hold exactly the same status as those immigrants were arrested.

But what hinders fear is a feeling of overwhelmingness – whether and when these raids will reach the Chinese community, or when the next downturn in China’s relations may be when.

Between the two Trump presidency, U.S.-China relations have barely improved when Joe Biden served in the White House. Democrats maintained earlier Trump tariffs, and tensions intensified as Beijing’s remarks on the status of our ally Taiwan.

For some, all the uneasiness raises a question, and many Chinese immigrants have quietly asked themselves: Is the United States worth it?

Kevin is a man in his thirties from Fujian Province, China, and that’s not what he is. Like Pan and James, Kevin traveled across Latin America to the United States. But the American dream he once believed was like a raft building in the sea.

When I asked him how he settled down when he lived there with his wife and their newborn son in California, San Gabriel Valley, he mentioned the ice attack in Los Angeles and replied, “Everything is not sure. So no, I’m not settled down.”

Kevin’s fantasy is very deep. “To me, America feels like it’s becoming another China,” he said. “Darwinian society.”

He continued, “If I knew what it would be like, I probably wouldn’t have come.”

For a long time, all these immigrants’ bondage were the journey they shared on that dangerous road.

But now, there is an additional dimension to this binding force: two years after they arrived in the United States, they are now undercurrents in their emotions. People realize that their status in the United States is unstable and that the country they bet on is no room for after all.

The Zouxian wave is driven by despair—but also almost a child’s belief in American thought: this country, despite all its shortcomings, still provides a lens in dignity. Delivery work. A piece of land. There was a bed behind the restaurant, and no one came to knock on the door at night.

Now, as Trump portrays China as a national security threat, warns of “infiltration” and hopes of a crackdown on a large cleanup on many things related to China, even these modest hopes are more besieged than ever.

The effect is obvious. Now, a new wave of Chinese immigration – many of which are still waiting for asylum – feels now trapped in pliers: Americans distrust, are unwanted by Beijing, and are sometimes suspended by law.

Pan (Pan) does the worst thing alone. “The future here is no longer certain,” he said, standing outside the restaurant in Barstow, watching the highway traffic blurred. “I’m worried that I might not allow myself to stay. If I go back to China…”

He was behind. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he looked at me, steady, calm, and resigned.

“This idea is unbearable,” he said.

This is the same look I remembered in that hotel room in Keto two years ago: worries flashed behind tired eyes, but below it is the core of absolute determination.

No matter what happened, Pan told me that he had been staying.