Overview
- Private residential camps around Beijing have expanded routine pre-departure drills to include exercises that mimic U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tactics and sudden home or campus raids.
- One reported exercise staged a masked intruder tying up students and forcing a ransom video, while at least one camp advertisement explicitly promises training that 'simulates ICE enforcement tactics and procedures.'
- The shift toward ICE-focused modules grew out of parental fear of violent crime in U.S. cities and recent ICE detentions and deportations that have made immigration enforcement a prominent concern for families.
- Chinese authorities already run official government-funded pre-study briefings and have issued travel guidance for students bound for the United States, and private camps are supplementing that with hands-on scenarios.
- The trend may influence where Chinese families send students and how they prepare them, since U.S. enrollments have been falling and some parents are favoring the UK, Australia or Hong Kong for study abroad.