The journey from Dallas to the city in northern China involved two planes, three stops and more than 24 hours of travel. Tao, an electronics repairman in his early 30s, spent them wide awake — metal cuffs biting into his wrists and ankles, his mind racing.

从达拉斯到那座中国北方城市，全程搭乘两架飞机、经过三次中转，耗时超过24小时。30出头的电子维修工陶（音）全程一直醒着——金属镣铐扣在他的手腕和脚踝，他思绪翻涌。

He was being deported back to China, after American officials rejected his asylum claim. Questions swirled in his head.

在美国官员拒绝了他的庇护申请后，他被遣返回中国。各种问题在他的脑海里盘旋。

What awaited him back in China, the country that he had tried so hard to escape? Would he be punished? Would he ever leave again?

在中国——这个他拼命想要逃离的国家——等待着他的是什么？他会受到惩罚吗？他还会离开吗？

Tao — whom we are identifying by his first name only in order to protect his family — was part of a record-breaking wave of undocumented Chinese migrants who, during and after the pandemic, made harrowing journeys through the jungles of Central America to the United States. Many, including Tao, were not high-profile dissidents but ordinary Chinese who felt suffocated by their government’s tightening grip on society and discouraged by dimming economic prospects.

陶——为了保护其家人，本文仅披露他的姓氏——是一波破纪录的无证中国移民浪潮中的一员，疫情期间和之后，他，俄美艰难地穿越中美洲的丛林，抵达美国。包括陶在内的许多人并不是高调的异见人士，而是普通的中国人，政府收紧对社会的控制令他们感到窒息，黯淡的经济前景令他们感到沮丧。

Tao presented himself at the southern border in Texas and applied for political asylum, confident he would be accepted by a system he believed was open and liberal. The odds for any undocumented migrants applying for asylum in the United States are slim, but Chinese applicants have had a slightly higher success rate — in 2023, 11 percent of undocumented Chinese migrants like Tao were granted asylum.

陶来到得克萨斯州南部边境，主动申请政治庇护，他相信这个开放和自由的制度会接受自己。无证移民在美国申请庇护的成功率很低，但中国申请者的成功率略高——2023年，陶这样的无证中国移民有11%获得了庇护。

But Tao’s claim was denied, even as others like him were getting through, as the Biden administration toughened its stance on illegal immigration.

然而拜登政府在非法移民问题上的立开始变得更为强硬，陶的申请被拒绝，尽管当时像他这样的人仍在陆续获准入境。

2023年，在得克萨斯州弗朗顿，向边境巡逻队自首的中国移民聚集在一起。

That left Tao with a choice. After being sent back to China, he could go back to his previous life, working a dead-end job and hiding his political views, not only from the government but also from people around him who did not seem to feel the same — and who might report him to the authorities.

这让陶面临选择。被送回中国后，他可以回到以前的生活，做一份没有前途的工作，隐藏自己的政治观点，不仅不能让政府知道，也不能让他周围那些似乎和他意见相左的人知道，他们有可能向当局举报他。

Or he could try to leave again, though that would be even more difficult now. His passport had been confiscated, his bank account was empty and his name was now on the authorities’ radar.

或者他可以尝试再次逃离，但这次会更加困难。他的护照被没收，银行账户也空了，他的名字现在已被当局关注。

For Tao, the question was whether there was any space for him in today’s China. For decades, even Chinese who disagreed with the government’s tight controls had some space to express themselves. And the country’s economic boom made the restrictions on personal freedoms tolerable. But now, that growth is slowing, and the controls are growing. For some, only more extreme options remain.

对陶而言，问题在于，他在今天的中国是否还有立足之地。过去几十年，即使是反对政府严格控制的中国人也存在一些表达空间。国家的经济繁荣使得个人自由受限问题尚可容忍。但如今，经济增长放缓，管制却在加强。对一些人来说，只剩下更极端的选择。

We spent hours interviewing Tao and reviewed American immigration records, as well as official Chinese documents, social media posts and photos from his travels that he shared with us to support his account. He also shared text messages that he said were from Chinese security officers. And we talked to two people whom he interacted with when he was in the United States.

我们对陶进行了长时间的采访，查阅美国移民记录、中国官方文件、社交媒体帖子以及他为支持自己的说法而与我们分享的旅行照片。他还分享了据他声称来自中国安全人员的短信。我们采访了他在美国时接触过的两个人。

Still, some aspects of Tao’s account, particularly his interactions with the Chinese authorities, were difficult to verify, a common challenge in reporting on a security apparatus that is largely opaque. But the details he recounted are consistent with others who have described similar forms of pressure.

尽管如此，陶的叙述的某些方面难以核实，特别是他与中国当局的互动，这是报道一个基本上不透明的安全机构时经常面临的挑战。但他讲述的细节与其他人描述的类似压力相符。

Tao, who is slim and boyish with a gentle demeanor, said that he wanted to share his story to try and make sense of his experience.

陶身材瘦削，显得有些稚气未脱，举止温和，他说他想通过讲述来梳理自己的经历。

“There are rarely people who are willing to listen to me talk about this,” he said.

“很少有人愿意听我说这些，”他说。

Between Reality and Propaganda

现实与宣传之间

Tao was born in the 1990s, but as a child, he heard a lot about the year 1959.

陶出生于1990年代，但小时候，他听到过很多关于1959年的事情。

His grandmother told stories about the Great Famine that began that year, wiping out one-fourth of the people in their part of Anhui Province, in eastern China. She said one woman she knew had been driven to cannibalism.

他的祖母给他讲过从那年开始的大饥荒，在中国东部的安徽省，大饥荒导致人口减少了四分之一。她说，她认识的一个女人不得不吃人。

By the time Tao was born, in a village of about 20 families near the city of Fuyang, people were no longer starving, but poverty remained. His parents worked hard, alternating between factory work and pig farming, but still never earned enough. When they wanted to rebuild their adobe house with cement — the area was prone to flooding — they had to borrow money. When Tao was 14, contaminated formula poisoned many babies in Fuyang, becoming a nationwide scandal.

陶的家乡是阜阳附近一个大约有20户人家的村子，在他出生的年代，人们不再挨饿，但贫困仍然存在。他的父母工作辛苦，有时进工厂，有时养猪，但收入始终不够。该地区多发洪水，他们想用水泥重建土坯房时只能举债。陶14岁时，受污染的配方奶粉导致阜阳许多婴儿中毒，成为全国性的丑闻。

Yet in school, he was taught a different story. Textbooks in his Moral Education class declared that China would soon become a “moderately developed country,” but he wondered how the writers could be so sure, given the poverty around him. The books also extolled the Chinese military, but he learned from videos on YouTube — the site had not yet been blocked — that troops had massacred pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

但学校里教给他的是一个不同的故事。思想品德课的教科书宣称中国将很快成为“中等发达国家”，但他不明白，他周围的一切都是那么贫困，作者怎么能够如此肯定。课本歌颂中国军队，但他通过当时尚未被封锁的YouTube视频得知，1989年，军队在天安门广场屠杀了民主抗议者。

He had questions, but few friends he could discuss them with. Whenever he tried to discuss politics at the dinner table, his father told him to focus on eating.

他有疑问，但没几个朋友可以和他讨论。每当他试图在餐桌上讨论政治，父亲总会让他专心吃饭。

“I felt pretty torn,” he said. From his family’s stories, he said, he could “see what this society was really like, what this country was really like at the time.

“我觉得很纠结，”他说。从他家族的故事，他可以“看到这个社会的真实面貌，这个国家当时的真实面貌”。

“But many people don’t want to think about that,” he said.

“但是很多人不愿想这些，”他说。

1958年，位于今广东省境内的稻田。大饥荒于次年爆发。

He enrolled in a vocational college in the late 2000s, then moved to the coastal city of Suzhou to work as an electronics repairman, earning around $830 a month. He met a woman and thought they would start a family.

2000年代末，他进入了一所职业学院，然后来到沿海地区的苏州，做了一名电子修理工，每月收入约6000元。他结识了一名女子，当时考虑组建家庭。

Still, he kept reading foreign websites, using software to bypass China’s internet censorship system. On overseas platforms like Twitter, he railed against seemingly every aspect of China under the Communist Party: food safety issues; income inequality; the personality cult around China’s leader, Xi Jinping.

但他仍持续浏览外国网站，使用软件绕过中国的网络审查系统。在Twitter等海外平台上，他抨击共产党治下中国的方方面面：食品安全问题、收入不平等、围绕中国领导人习近平的个人崇拜。

Yet the space for even hidden defiance was shrinking. In 2018, Tao said, the police summoned him and showed him a post he had written that criticized Mr. Xi’s move that year to scrap presidential term limits. They fined him and made him promise in writing not to do it again, he said.

然而，即使是隐蔽的反抗空间也在缩小。陶表示，2018年警方传唤他时，出示了他当年批评习近平取消国家主席任期限制的帖文。他说，他们对他处以罚款，要求他书面承诺不会再犯。

Soon after, he learned that he could get a visa to Japan by enrolling in a language school, so he paid more than $4,000, his life’s savings, to attend one in Tokyo, he said. For two years, he said, he thrilled to the sight of politicians campaigning on the streets. He posted more boldly on social media.

他说，不久之后，他得知他可以通过就读语言学校获得前往日本的签证，于是他花费大约3万元左右的毕生积蓄，在东京上了一所语言学校。他说，两年来，看到政界人士在日本街头竞选，令他激动不已。他在社交媒体上的发帖更加大胆。

In 2022, his visa expired. Determined not to return to China, he began looking into a new option: the United States. Growing numbers of Chinese citizens were getting there through Ecuador, which at that time did not require visas for them. He joined WhatsApp groups that promised to show people how to make the journey.

2022年，签证到期了。他决定不再回到中国，开始探索新的选择：美国。越来越多的中国公民通过当时对中国免签的厄瓜多尔入境美国。他加入了一些WhatsApp群组，这些群组承诺指导人们完成这段旅程。

That September, he set out.

那年9月，他出发了。

A Harrowing Passage, Then a Crushing Rejection

一段痛苦的旅程，然后是令人心碎的拒绝

When Tao left Japan, he had about $20,000, money he had saved from working after his language program, and through some support from his parents.

陶离开日本时带着大约2万美元，这是他完成语言课程后打工攒下的钱，其中还有来自父母的一些支持。

By the time he crossed into El Paso, Texas, two months later, he had less than $450.

两个月后，当他越过边界进入得克萨斯州的埃尔帕索时，他身上的钱还不到450美元。

In between, he had crossed the treacherous, at-times deadly stretch of Panamanian jungle known as the Darién Gap, where migrants must brave muddy hills, snakes and bandits. He had been extorted by officials in Colombia and swindled by a human smuggler in Honduras. He had been stranded in Mexico for three weeks, waiting for a permit to travel north, paying about $3 a night for a bed in a courtyard with a makeshift roof.

在此期间，他穿越了巴拿马丛林中险象环生、有时甚至致命的地带达连峡谷。在那里，移民必须勇敢地走过泥泞的山丘，面对毒蛇和强盗。他在哥伦比亚被官员敲诈，在洪都拉斯被人贩子欺骗。他在墨西哥滞留了三个星期，等待向北行进的许可，在一个临时搭建的棚屋里租了一张床，每晚要三美元左右。

2023年，中国移民穿越达连峡谷丛林前往美国。

Still, he remained hopeful. He imagined enrolling in English classes in the United States and getting certified as an electrician. He was detained upon crossing a checkpoint in Texas, but he had expected that, and immediately applied for political asylum.

不过，他仍然抱有希望。他想象着在美国注册学习英语课程，并获得电工证书。他在得克萨斯州的一个检查站被拘留，但他已经预料到了这一点，并立即申请了政治庇护。

He was transferred to an immigration jail in Aurora, Colo., where an immigration officer conducted his asylum interview. During that interview, Tao said, he showed his social media posts and described being summoned by Chinese police. He said the asylum officer asked whether the police had ever beaten him, and that he was truthful and said no, assuming his interrogation experience was sufficient.

他被转移到科罗拉多州奥罗拉的一个移民监狱，在那里，一名移民官员对他进行了庇护面谈。陶说，在那次谈话中，他展示了自己的社交媒体帖子，并描述了自己被中国警方传唤的情况。他说，庇护官员问他警察是否打过他，他诚实地说没有，认为他遭到审讯的经历已经足够了。

“They know what kind of country China is,” he thought.

“他们知道中国是个什么样的国家，”他想。

拘留所内的手写日历。

Then, he waited. But in late December 2022, he was told he had not passed his asylum interview. Immigration records show that he petitioned a judge in Aurora to review his case. In early January, the judge rejected his claim, too, he said. He would be deported.

然后，他开始等待。但在2022年12月底，他被告知没有通过庇护面谈。移民记录显示，他曾请求奥罗拉的一名法官复审他的案件。他说，1月初，该法官也驳回了他的要求。他将被驱逐出境。

Tao was stunned. He pleaded with officials, saying he might be punished if he went back to China. He wrote letters to an immigration lawyer, the U.S. Justice Department and the United Nations, he said. He also wrote an eight-page letter to his parents detailing why he had wanted to leave China, what he had posted online. He was contemplating suicide, he said, and wanted his parents to know why.

陶惊呆了。他恳求官员说，如果回到中国，他可能会受到惩罚。他说，他给移民律师、美国司法部和联合国写了信。他还给父母写了一封八页的信，详细说明了他想离开中国的原因，以及他在网上发帖的内容。他说，他正在考虑自杀，想让父母知道其中的原因。

Tao never got an explanation for the denial. Immigration lawyers say that poor translation, lack of legal representation or rushed decisions by overworked asylum officers can make it hard for migrants to make their cases. Chen Chuangchuang, a lawyer in California who has represented many Chinese asylum seekers, said he has seen strong cases denied and weak ones approved.

陶没有得到申请遭拒的解释。移民律师表示，糟糕的翻译、缺乏法律代理人，或是庇护官员因工作过劳而仓促作出的决定都可能使移民难以陈述自己的案情。曾代理过许多中国寻求庇护者的加州律师陈闯创说，他看到过一些理由很充分的案例遭到拒绝，一些理由薄弱的案例反而得到批准。

When officials attempted to put Tao on a deportation flight in March 2023, he said, he hurled himself down a flight of stairs. He said he was hospitalized and then returned to jail, this time in Texas.

陶说，2023年3月，当官员试图将他送上驱逐出境的飞机时，他从舷梯上跳了下去。他说他被送进医院，然后又回到监狱，这次是在得克萨斯州。

“I felt that my fate wasn’t in my own hands,” Tao said, “like I was just drifting in the wind.”

“我觉得命运不在自己手中，”陶说，“就像随风飘荡。”

(Zheng Cunzhu, a Chinese activist in the United States whom Tao contacted afterward, said that Tao had shared the same account of his ordeal with him, as did one of Tao’s cellmates in detention, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.)

（陶事后曾联系的在美中国活动人士郑存柱证实，这和陶向他陈述的遭遇吻合，一个曾与陶一同被关押的人也提供了相同叙述，此人要求匿名。）

In late 2023, Tao was again put on a plane. He was bound for China.

2023年年底，陶再次被送上去往中国的飞机。

Deported, Watched and Worn Down

被驱逐、被监视、被消磨

After his flight landed in northern China, things started going wrong immediately.

当他的飞机降落在中国北方，麻烦接踵而至。

Customs officials rifled through his belongings and found photocopies he had made of his letters pleading for asylum, which he had not had time to destroy. When he tried to deny that they were his, an officer slapped him, he said.

海关人员搜查了他的财物，发现他没来得及销毁的庇护申请信复印件。他说，当他试图否认这些文件归他所有，一名官员打了他一耳光。

The officers also grilled him about whether any Chinese smugglers had helped him get to the United States. They pressured him to frame a fellow deportee for illegally arranging his journey, Tao said, threatening to jail him if he did not comply.

官员们还严厉盘问他是否有任何中国蛇头帮助他入境美国。陶说，他们逼迫他诬陷另一名被遣返者非法安排他的行程，并威胁说如果他不照做就把他关进监狱。

He said he agreed to — a decision he still regrets.

他说他当时同意了——他至今仍后悔这个决定。

The officers confiscated his passport and papers and then let him go.

官员没收了他的护照和证件，然后放他走了。

Tao shared a customs document with The New York Times showing that his passport had been seized. Chinese immigration officials did not respond to faxed questions about how they handle repatriated migrants.

陶向《纽约时报》出示了一份海关文件，显示他的护照被没收了。中国移民官员没有回应有关他们如何处理遣返移民的传真询问。

In interviews, other people recently deported back to China from the United States said they had been questioned by officials but not abused or threatened. Experts say the government generally does not mistreat deportees, because it tends to see them as economic migrants, not political threats.

在采访中，其他近期从美国被遣返回中国的人说，他们受到了官员的盘问，但没有受到虐待或威胁。专家表示，政府一般不会虐待被遣返者，因为政府倾向于将他们视为经济移民，而不是政治威胁。

中国北部延吉市的一条街道。

Tao left the airport with only his cash, his phone and some clothes. His parents bought him a train ticket to a coastal city in southern China, where they were working. When his mother saw him, she begged him, tearfully, not to leave again.

离开机场时，陶身上只剩下现金、手机和一些衣服。他的父母给他买了去一个中国南方沿海城市的火车票，他们在那里打工。当他母亲看到他时，泪流满面地乞求他不要再离开了。

Just like that, Tao was back in the life he had tried to leave. He found a job driving a forklift at an auto parts factory, earning about $960 a month. He tried to ignore his festering resentment.

就这样，陶回到了他曾试图离开的生活。他在一家汽车配件厂找到了一份开叉车的工作，每月收入约6800元人民币。他努力忽略内心日益滋长的怨恨。

Then, about a month after his return, he received a phone call, he said. The caller, who identified himself as a state security officer, summoned him to a meeting.

他说，大约在回国一个月后，他接到了一个电话。来电者自称是国家安全官员，要求他去见个面。

There, he said, two officers showed him the letter that he had mailed to his parents — which his parents had never received. They told him that he had violated China’s national security law, internet law and anti-secession law, he said. They asked if he knew others who opposed the government or wanted to leave China. Could he provide their contacts?

他说，会面期间两名官员向他展示了他寄给父母的那封信——他的父母始终没收到信。他们告诉他，他违反了中国的国家安全法、互联网法和反分裂法。他们问他是否认识其他反对政府或想离开中国的人。能不能提供他们的联系方式？

Tao was terrified. “No matter what they say, I have to cooperate,” he thought.

陶吓坏了。“不管他们说什么，我只能配合，”他想。

Over the next months, the officers messaged him regularly, asking for information on other migrants, Tao said. (He said he made up answers.) They met in person twice more, once at a KFC and once at a teahouse.

陶说，在接下来的几个月里，这些官员定期给他发信息，索要其他移民的信息。（他说他的回答是编造的。）他们又见过两次面，一次是在肯德基，一次是在一家茶馆。

The pressure was not just political. China’s economic slowdown meant that workers were being pushed harder than ever. Tao’s boss frequently asked him to work overtime. His brother, who worked in an auto body shop, worried about being laid off.

压力不仅仅来自政治。中国的经济放缓意味着工人被压榨得比以往任何时候都更厉害。陶的老板经常要求他加班。他的哥哥在一家汽车修理厂工作，担心被解雇。

“Everyone is desperate,” Tao said. “The boss is desperately exploiting the employees, and the employees are desperately trying to perform.”

“每个人都很绝望，”陶说。“老板拼命压榨员工，员工拼命地表现。”

Tao also resented his co-workers, who he said were nationalistic, talking excitedly about the prospect of China and the United States going to war.

陶也对他那些同事心怀不满，他说他们是民族主义者，兴奋地谈论着中美开战的前景。

Seven months after his return, he decided to apply for a new passport. But when a worker at the local government office tried to process his application, the system flagged that he was on an exit ban list, Tao said. He was rejected.

回国七个月后，他决定申请一本新护照。但他说，当地政府办公室的一名工作人员试图处理他的申请时，系统显示他被列入了出境禁令名单。他的申请被拒绝了。

 A Fragile Freedom and an Uncertain Future

脆弱的自由和不确定的未来

After his passport application was rejected, Tao refused to give up. He wrote to the authorities in the northern Chinese city where his passport was confiscated, to ask them to revoke the restrictions, arguing that he had cooperated with the customs officials’ requests. He also tried his luck in a different city, traveling to Shanghai to apply again. To his surprise, this time he succeeded.

护照申请被拒后，陶不愿放弃。他写信给没收他护照的中国北方城市当局，要求撤销限制，称他已经配合了海关官员的要求。他还想在另一个城市碰碰运气，于是去了上海再次申请。令他惊讶的是，这一次他成功了。

He then contacted a job agency that places Chinese workers in a Southeast Asian country. In October of last year, he said goodbye to his parents again.

然后他他联系了一家安排中国工人赴东南亚国家就业的中介机构。去年10月，他再次与父母道别。

As he once again passed through Chinese customs, this time outward bound, his heart pounded. He wondered if he would be pulled aside.

他再次通过中国海关，这一次是出境，他的心砰砰直跳。他不知道自己是否会被拦下。

The officer waved him through.

海关官员向他挥手示意通行。

一架飞机从上海一座机场起飞。

We met Tao in person for the first time not long after he arrived there, after he finished a 12-hour shift at work. We walked to an outdoor seating area in his housing complex, where for the next several hours he recounted his story.

他抵达那里后不久，我们第一次见到了他，当时他刚结束12小时的工作。我们走到他居住区的一个户外座位区，接下来的几个小时里，他向我们讲述了他的故事。

He spoke eagerly, without concern about being overheard.

他说得很急切，毫不担心被人偷听。

His new life was not a total escape from what he had chafed at in China. His work, at an electronics factory, was still tiring and low paying. He had tried talking to some of his co-workers, mostly fellow Chinese, about his distaste for China’s government, but they disagreed.

他的新生活并未完全逃离他在中国感到不满的一切。他在一家电子工厂的工作仍然很辛苦，薪水很低。他曾试图和他的一些工友——大多数是中国同胞——谈论他对中国政府的不满，但他们并不认同。

The state security officers still sent him messages checking in, he said, and he did not know if they knew he had left. Just a few days before we met, one had asked him what he had meant by a post on WeChat in which he called India’s prime minister authoritarian.

他说，那些国家安全官员仍然会给他发信息，他不知道他们是否知道他已经离开。就在我们见面几天前，其中一名官员还问他，他发在微信上的一条帖子是什么意思，那条帖子中他称印度的总理是独裁者。

Still, he now felt safe ignoring the officers’ messages. His contract allowed him to stay in the country for two years. Afterward, he hoped to go to Europe or Mexico.

尽管如此，他现在觉得自己可以安全地无视这些官员发来的信息了。他的合同允许他在这个国家停留两年。之后，他希望能去欧洲或墨西哥。

As for what he would do then, he was not sure. Sometimes, he spoke in sweeping terms about awakening other Chinese to what he called the evils of the Communist Party. He had reached out to the owner of an anti-government blog living in the Netherlands, asking if he could join his efforts. He dreamed of protesting in front of Chinese embassies.

至于之后做什么，他并不确定。有时，他会用宏大的言辞谈论唤醒其他中国人，让他们认识到他所说的共产党政权的邪恶。他联系了一个居住在荷兰的反政府博主，询问是否可以加入他的行动。他梦想着在中国大使馆前抗议。

Other times, his goals were humbler: to find a job that was fulfilling, maybe send money home.

其他时候，他的目标则更谦卑：找到一份有成就感的工作，也许可以寄钱回家。

What mattered, he said, was having the freedom to choose.

他说，重要的是拥有选择的自由。

“Posting on Twitter, protesting, those of course are important,” he said. “But they’re not everything. I just want to be a normal person.”

“在Twitter上发帖，参加抗议，这些当然很重要，”他说。“但它们并非全部。我只是想做一个普通人。”