In this edition of StockCharts TV‘s The Final Bar, Dave drops a market update, with a focus on Bitcoin’s rebound above 70K, deteriorating short-term breadth conditions, and stocks still making new highs despite the market consolidation phase.
This video originally premiered on April 8, 2024. Watch on our dedicated Final Bar page on StockCharts TV!
New episodes of The Final Bar premiere every weekday afternoon. You can view all previously recorded episodes at this link.
Shares of Trump Media have erased all their gains since they began trading under the ticker DJT last month.
As of Monday afternoon, the stock was priced at about $36 — down from a high of $66 seen March 27.
But experts say it’s hard to draw any firm conclusions about what the stock price’s movement means. That’s because so many available shares — about 12%, one of the highest ratios of any active stock listing — reflect traders’ bets that the stock will fall, said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director at S3 Partners, a data and predictive analytics company.
This is called short-selling.
Right now, much of the trading activity surrounding the stock reflects investors’ attempts to position bets around whether it will continue to fall, Dusaniwsky said in an email.
While some traders are looking to make even more gains from continued price declines, others may be looking to “squeeze” the short positions by betting that something will cause the share price to rise.
“This seems more like the gunfight at the OK Corral, with both sides waiting for the other to act first,” Dusaniwsky said.
As the stock’s price has rocked back-and-forth, former President Donald Trump, who owns a majority of the company’s shares, has seen his net worth move in tandem, falling from a high of about $5.2 billion down to about $2.9 billion.
But those figures are largely immaterial for Trump, since he is contractually barred from selling or even borrowing against his shares for six months.
In a post on Truth Social earlier this month, Trump called the company’s business ‘very solid’ and said criticisms of its ability to reach a wide audience were ‘lies.’
But according to company filings, Trump Media lost $58.2 million last year and did not report any user metrics.
Meanwhile, the company’s auditor issued a “going concern” notice for the business, saying it was not confident it would be able to stay afloat.
That auditor, BF Borgers CPA PC, has itself been the subject of recent reports about its effectiveness. For instance, it is banned in Canada.
In a news release last week, CEO Devin Nunes, a former U.S. congressman, said he was confident about the future of the business.
“We are excited to be operating as a public company and to have secured access to capital markets,’ Nunes said in a statement. ‘Closing out the 2023 financials related to the merger, Truth Social today has no debt and over $200 million in the bank, opening numerous possibilities for expanding and enhancing our platform.’
‘We intend to take full advantage of these opportunities to make Truth Social the quintessential free-speech platform for the American people,” Nunes said.
If you bought packaged meat or bagged fruit from Walmart in the past five years or so, you may be eligible for a settlement payment.
The retail giant has agreed in principle to pay back a fraction of what affected customers spent on the purchases as part of an agreement with plaintiffs who claimed it illicitly inflated the price of weighted goods at checkout.
Walmart has denied any wrongdoing, saying it agreed to the settlement to avoid a trial.
According to the settlement’s website, anyone who can produce a receipt of a purchase or can attest to having made a purchase of packaged meat, poultry, pork and seafood and/or bagged citrus products, like organic oranges, grapefruit, tangerines and navel oranges, is eligible to receive a payment. The purchase must have occurred between Oct. 19, 2018, and Jan. 19, 2024.
The settlement entitles such claimants to 2% of the total cost of their purchased goods, up to $500 — though the cap may change once all claims have been filed and reviewed.
Shares of Trump Media have erased all their gains since they began trading under the ticker DJT last month.
As of Monday afternoon, the stock was priced at about $36 — down from a high of $66 seen March 27.
But experts say it’s hard to draw any firm conclusions about what the stock price’s movement means. That’s because so many available shares — about 12%, one of the highest ratios of any active stock listing — reflect traders’ bets that the stock will fall, said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director at S3 Partners, a data and predictive analytics company.
This is called short-selling.
Right now, much of the trading activity surrounding the stock reflects investors’ attempts to position bets around whether it will continue to fall, Dusaniwsky said in an email.
While some traders are looking to make even more gains from continued price declines, others may be looking to “squeeze” the short positions by betting that something will cause the share price to rise.
“This seems more like the gunfight at the OK Corral, with both sides waiting for the other to act first,” Dusaniwsky said.
As the stock’s price has rocked back-and-forth, former President Donald Trump, who owns a majority of the company’s shares, has seen his net worth move in tandem, falling from a high of about $5.2 billion down to about $2.9 billion.
But those figures are largely immaterial for Trump, since he is contractually barred from selling or even borrowing against his shares for six months.
In a post on Truth Social earlier this month, Trump called the company’s business ‘very solid’ and said criticisms of its ability to reach a wide audience were ‘lies.’
But according to company filings, Trump Media lost $58.2 million last year and did not report any user metrics.
Meanwhile, the company’s auditor issued a “going concern” notice for the business, saying it was not confident it would be able to stay afloat.
That auditor, BF Borgers CPA PC, has itself been the subject of recent reports about its effectiveness. For instance, it is banned in Canada.
In a news release last week, CEO Devin Nunes, a former U.S. congressman, said he was confident about the future of the business.
“We are excited to be operating as a public company and to have secured access to capital markets,’ Nunes said in a statement. ‘Closing out the 2023 financials related to the merger, Truth Social today has no debt and over $200 million in the bank, opening numerous possibilities for expanding and enhancing our platform.’
‘We intend to take full advantage of these opportunities to make Truth Social the quintessential free-speech platform for the American people,” Nunes said.
The women’s national championship game that pitted South Carolina against Iowa Sunday smashed a TV ratings record for the most-watched women’s basketball game ever, according to ESPN, which along with ABC televised the game and cited Nielsen Fast Nationals.
The number of viewers peaked at 24 million and drew an average of 18.7 million viewers during a game in which South Carolina prevailed over Caitlin Clark and Iowa, 87-75, at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.
ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro called it ‘a fitting finale’ to the most-viewed ever NCAA women’s basketball tournament.
‘These exceptional athletes, coaches and teams captured our attention in unprecedented ways and it’s incumbent on all of us to keep the incredible momentum going,’ Pitaro said. ‘I’m also very proud of our talented and committed employees for how they presented this historic event.’
The previous record for the most-watched women’s basketball game was set two days earlier during the Final Four semifinal game between Iowa and Connecticut. That game averaged 14.2 million viewers, according to ESPN, which televised the game during a historic women’s NCAA Tournament for TV ratings.
FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.
The Iowa-UConn game broke a record set in the prior round, with the Iowa-LSU game in the Elite Eight having averaged 12.3 million viewers.
With Clark pitted against undefeated South Carolina on Sunday, the game was the most-watched sporting event since 2019, with the exception of football and the Olympics, according to ESPN. It also was the most watched basketball game of any level since 2019, according to ESPN.
Additionally, the South Carolina-Iowa game became the second most-watched non-Olympic sporting event ever on U.S. television behind the women’s World Cup Final in 2015, when the United States beat Japan, 5-2.
Legendary Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson has some advice for John Calipari, who is set to leave Kentucky to take over the Razorbacks’ program.
‘You got to stay ahead of the posse now,’ said Richardson, who in 1994 led the Razorbacks to their only national championship in men’s basketball, ’cause if you’re not saying ahead of the posse, they’re going to get you.’
The fan base soured on Calipari after his teams suffered first-round losses in the NCAA Tournament to No. 15 seed Saint Peters in 2022 and to No. 14 seed Oakland this year.
‘Now Kentucky has tremendous expectations,’ Richardson, who retired at Arkansas in 2002, told USA TODAY Sports. ‘But little do they know that Arkansas does, too.’
FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.
At the same time, Richardson cited Calipari’s success when saying, ‘He’s been wherever everybody wants to go, so he’s a proven basketball coach of his time.’
The 2014 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee also rejected the idea that Calipari, 65, has lost his touch. In fact, Richardson said coming to Arkansas could rejuvenate Calipari after a 15-year tenure at Kentucky.
“Absolutely,’’ Richardson said. “He doesn’t have that huge monkey on his back.’’
The Charlotte Hornets are reportedly interviewing former WNBA player and current G League coach Lindsey Harding for their head coaching job. The Hornets were granted permission to speak with her on Monday, according to ESPN.
Harding is the head coach of the Stockton Kings, the Sacramento Kings’ G League affiliate. This season, she became the first Black woman to lead a G League team when she was given the role. She then became the first woman to be named the G League Coach of the Year. The Kings earned a No. 1 seed in the playoffs and made it to the Western Conference Finals. They achieved this success even after the team cut center Chance Comanche after he was arrested for murder in December.
Before being named the head coach of Stockton, Harding had been an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings since 2019, including last season where they ended the NBA’s longest playoff drought. The year prior to joining the Kings, she was a personnel scout and player development coach for the Philadelphia 76ers.
As a player, Harding was the No. 1 overall pick to the Phoenix Mercury in the 2007 WNBA draft after starring at Duke. She was the National Player of the Year her senior season when she averaged 13.6 points, 4 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.5 steals per game for the Blue Devils. She was traded on draft night to the Minnesota Lynx. She spent a decade in the league, also spending time with the Washington Mystics, Atlanta Dream — where she was in the 2011 WNBA Finals — and Los Angeles Sparks. She was waived by the Sparks ahead of the 2015 season and then spent 2016 with the New York Liberty. She returned to the Mercury before retiring.
On Wednesday, Hornets head coach Steve Clifford said that he will step down from his role and join the front office when his contract expires at the end of this season. Charlotte is 19-59 and 13th in the Eastern Conference standings. He was hired in 2022 for his second stint with the team. He was previously the head coach from 2013 to 2018 and took the Hornets to the playoffs twice. They have not been back to the postseason since 2016.
All things Hornets: Latest Charlotte Hornets news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.
If Harding is hired, she would be the first woman head coach in NBA history. Becky Hammon was an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs from 2014 to 2022 when she left to become the head coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces. She became the first woman to serve as a head coach in an NBA game when Gregg Popovich was ejected during a 2020 game. She won the 2015 Summer League championship at the helm of the Spurs. Before she got the job with the Aces, the Indiana Pacers, Portland Trail Blazers and Orlando Magic interviewed her for their head coaching jobs but ultimately decided on other candidates.
Caitlin Clark has been called the greatest of all time (by Iowa fans), overrated (by most other Big Ten fans), “an alien,” (by Diana Taurasi), a generational talent (by Dawn Staley and Kim Mulkey) and just about every other superlative you can imagine.
But what do any of those descriptors mean when it comes to how her game will translate to the WNBA?
Clark, who scored 30 points in her final college game, an 87-75 loss to South Carolina in the national championship, is expected to be taken No. 1 by the Indiana Fever next Monday at the 2024 WNBA draft in Brooklyn.
“Can she still change her mind? Is that possible?” Iowa coach Lisa Bluder quipped Saturday, as the Hawkeyes prepared to take on the top-seeded Gamecocks. “I would like that very much.”
Bluder was joking about Clark’s intentions after the 2023-24 Iowa season. In February, Clark declared for the draft, forgoing her COVID year.
FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.
So despite Bluder’s dreams, this is what we know: Clark’s going pro and she’s going to the Fever. In Indianapolis, Clark will team up with 2023 Rookie of the Year Aaliyah Boston.
But what can basketball fans reasonably expect from Clark in her first professional season?
First, the positives: Clark has been the best distributor in college basketball the last few years, a true pass-first point guard gifted with tremendous court vision (don’t be fooled by how much Clark scored in college — she is always looking to get her teammates the ball). She’s especially lethal as a passer in the open floor, and will be at her best surrounded by athletes who get up the court like Boston, guard Kelsey Mitchell and forward NaLyssa Smith.
And then, of course, there’s the scoring. Clark is a logo-launching legend, and her range will translate immediately to the league.
Asked how she might change the pro game, NBA All-Star Stephen Curry’s answer was simple.
“I’m trying to think of someone she’s like — maybe like a Diana Taurasi but with even more playmaking ability,” Curry said. “She can change the geometry of the game a little bit, with her ability to space the floor. And with how she can shoot, she’ll be able to do it right away.”
Six-time WNBA All-Star Maya Moore, who was Clark’s favorite player growing up, said Clark has “a motor that’s always going to make the game better.”
“I’ll be interested to see how she can continue to work within a pro team and system,” Moore said. “There’s a way you learn and adjust at the pro level that will be really fun for her as she gets to play with more world-class players. She enjoys bringing that fire and joy, too, and that’s contagious.”
No current WNBA player shoots from 25 feet and beyond regularly, though it’s not because they can’t.
As two-time WNBA All-Star Kelsey Plum said this weekend on the Bird and Taurasi show, she declines to shoot deep 3s because the best player in the world, A’ja Wilson, is usually waiting on the block.
Plum’s point: Plenty of WNBA guards could be bombing from the perimeter, but data shows the better choice is always to put the ball in the paint first.
Plum is often who people want to compare Clark to, because both were prolific college scorers (Clark passed Plum in mid-February to become the all-time leading scorer in women’s Division I history, finishing her career with 3,951 points to Plum’s 3,527).
Plum is the first to say that there’s an adjustment period in the WNBA; her game changed significantly in the pros as she worked to become a better passer and better defender.
Clark has a couple advantages over Plum and Mitchell, who also scored a lot in college (3,402): she’s bigger — Clark is 6-foot, Plum and Mitchell are 5-foot-8 — which will allow her to see over defenders. She doesn’t have the foot speed of someone like Mitchell, who can get to the rim at will, but Clark does have a surprisingly quick first step.
Still, scoring in the pros is nothing like in college.
“You have to be a lot more precise in the way that you take angles, change pace, and then your decision-making, there’s a lot smaller windows to (do that),” Plum said, explaining that every pro team has the personnel to execute a specific scouting report to take away everything a great offensive player likes to do. In college, most teams don’t have the rosters to do that.
“When I got to the league, it was almost like starting over,” Plum said. “You have to relearn the game.”
The cons of Clark’s game — or the parts that will need the most work — are also pretty straightforward. She’s an inefficient dribbler, which will become glaringly obvious whenever she tries to get to the rim.
Clark hasn’t shown much of a midrange game in college either, but that speaks more to Iowa and Bluder’s philosophy of “3 or key.” It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have it, but it’ll be interesting to see how much of a go-to it is for her.
Regardless of what level she tries to score at — she has three options with the rim, the midrange and the 3-point line — Clark is going to go up against defenders who have seen every trick in the book. She won’t be able to provoke WNBA defenders like she did in college, often baiting them into fouling her as she’s driving.
“The defenders in the W are a lot older, they’re experienced and they’ve been defending superstars for years; they’ll know exactly what to do against her,” said former Iowa All-American Megan Gustafson, who had her own adjustment period when she went pro in 2019. “Rookies coming in from being collegiate superstars, they have a target on their back. The first thing vets want to do is make them look bad.”
Gustafson thinks once Clark puts on a few extra pounds of muscle — which will be challenging with her thin frame but possible because she’ll be fully focused on basketball — she’ll rise to every test presented.
And speaking of defenders, that’s hardly Clark’s calling card. Learning how to guard in the WNBA is likely to be her single biggest adjustment. At the same time, no one expects her to be a defensive stopper.
Bluder has her own worries, though they’re not related to Clark’s skillset.
“She’s going to be really tired after this season,” Bluder said. “That’s what concerns me the most. Rookies go into the WNBA, at their most exhausted time. That’s a little bit unfair for them.”
And that doesn’t even include the Olympic team, which Clark is still in contention to make as the Americans prepare for the Paris 2024 Games.
Still, Bluder has every confidence the two-time national player of the year will thrive at the next level, even if it takes awhile to get used to it.
“I just know that Caitlin has stepped up to every challenge that we’ve posed to her,” Bluder said. “I expect the same thing at the next level, although I know she’s going to have to pay her rookie dues.”
But perhaps the easiest answer to what kind of pro Clark will be is also the most obvious: She’ll be a popular pro.
And as marketing executives everywhere will tell you, that’s the best kind.
There is no coaching job in college basketball like Kentucky, and thus there are no coaching searches quite like the one athletics director Mitch Barnhart is about to undertake after with John Calipari leaving for Arkansas following 15 seasons that included 410 wins, one national title and four trips to the Final Four.
There simply aren’t many coaches out there with the level of accomplishment and presence to satisfy the Big Blue Nation, and among that group, there’s an even smaller number that would be willing to try. It’s an all-consuming public job with huge pressure and off-court demands. But it’s also got more upside than any other program in college basketball if someone can corral all the resources the school and the state have made available in pursuit of winning championships.
Here’s our initial best guess at some of the candidates who might be in line to replace Calipari.
If you take a step back and truly consider what he’s done at Baylor, it’s mind-blowing. The national championship in 2021 was probably a one-off, but the year-over-year consistency is one of the most impressive coaching feats in college basketball history reaching 12 of the last 16 NCAA Tournaments with five trips to the Sweet 16 or beyond. The question is whether anyone can convince him to uproot his family from Waco after two decades. Louisville tried and couldn’t do it. Kentucky is a different animal, though, and may be the one job that could tempt him.
FOLLOW THE MADNESS: NCAA basketball bracket, scores, schedules, teams and more.
The numbers speak for themselves. In three seasons as a head coach, Lloyd is 88-20 at Arizona with two trips to the Sweet 16. And at age 49, he’s probably just getting started. Though he recently signed a new deal with the Wildcats, this is a bit of an unstable time at Arizona with school-wide budget issues, an upcoming conference change from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 and a new athletics director in Desiree Reed-Francois. Though it would cost a lot of buyout money to get Lloyd out of that deal – upwards of $12 million – it’s worth it if you think he’s the guy who can deliver championships.
If Kentucky wanted someone who could deliver a similar type of presence and showmanship that Calipari brought to the table, they’d have to consider prying Pearl out of Auburn. Despite his long rap sheet of questionable ethics and NCAA issues, Pearl has built one of the top programs in the SEC at a historically difficult place to win. And you have to think he’d relish the chance to coach at a blueblood – just like Calipari back in 2009 when he left Memphis.
The bottom line on Williams is that he’s gotten premium results at non-premium programs. After an outstanding run at Marquette, he started over at Virginia Tech and rebuilt that outfit to an annual NCAA Tournament participant. Then he went to Texas A&M, another tough basketball job, and has significantly raised the floor with two consecutive NCAA appearances. Kentucky fans would certainly embrace the toughness and energy his teams play with, and putting the Big Blue brand behind a coach as good as Williams would be an interesting and perhaps devastating combination.
The former Kentucky and NBA player has done quite well at BYU, going 110-52 with two NCAA Tournament appearances in five years. But is he truly ready to take over at his alma mater and everything that comes with it? Probably not.
Oats has taken Alabama to its first Final Four and won two SEC regular-season titles in his five seasons with the Crimson Tide. And maybe the most incredible part of his success is that nobody knew who he was a decade ago when he was a former high school coach making the move up to Buffalo as an assistant. But is Kentucky really going to pay an $18 million buyout for Oats? That seems a little steep.
Despite his ties to the area as a former coach at nearby Murray State and Cincinnati, the timing probably isn’t great. Cronin is coming off a rebuilding year at UCLA and would be a tough sell to the Kentucky fan base, despite a long track record of success including a Final Four appearance in 2021.
Underwood’s record is sneaky good: Over the last four years, his teams have gone 56-24 in the Big Ten with two tournament titles. The Fighting Illini’s trip to the Elite Eight further validated him after some disappointing NCAA performances. Kentucky fans probably don’t know much about Underwood, but they’ll learn quickly if he is hired.
Since the former Villanova coach stepped away two years ago, some fans have questioned whether he might be tempted at some point to come back. At age 62, Wright would still have some good years left if he wanted one more shot at a program built to win national titles. But by all accounts, Wright is quite happy doing television and has no interest in returning to the coaching lifestyle – especially in this era where it’s much harder to build teams through redshirts and long-term development the way he did at his peak.
Though he was heavily linked to Kentucky when the job opened in 2007 and once again in 2009, he could never quite rationalize leaving a comfortable situation at Florida for the craziness of Big Blue Nation. Instead, Donovan went the NBA route – and all indications are he has no interest in returning to the college game at this stage. Having said that, there’s no guarantee Donovan will keep his current job with the Chicago Bulls for the long haul or get another head coaching opportunity in the NBA if it doesn’t work out. It still seems unlikely, though, that he’d leave in the middle of a season to return to college – or that Kentucky would wait until late April for him to become available.
This would be by far the funniest outcome, and Pitino has often talked about his decision to leave Kentucky in 1997 being one that he has some regrets about. Pitino can still coach, but after everything that has happened since then, there’s no way this can happen. Right?
He has the ego and coaching chops to handle the Kentucky job. They’d love him there. But why leave UConn at this point? It just doesn’t make much sense.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is defending a 2009 decision that allows Chinese nationals to enter U.S. territory without a visa based on a perceived ‘significant public benefit,’ while Republicans blast the ‘loophole’ as a way for members of the Chinese Communist Party to ‘infiltrate’ the United States and put national security at risk.
DHS penned a letter to Republican Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., in response to their request for information about the influx of Chinese immigration to U.S. territory Guam. Republican lawmakers have warned that influx poses a risk to national security due to the U.S. military bases on the island.
Guam hosts Naval Base Guam, the Navy’s only submarine base in the western Pacific, as well as Anderson Air Force Base, which is large enough to host U.S. strategic bombers and fighters.
The lawmakers have been calling for the Biden administration to close what they call a ‘visa loophole’ that they view as ‘exacerbating’ the issue of illegal immigration to Guam from China.
But DHS is defending the policy that protects the so-called loophole.
‘As you note, a foreign citizen generally must obtain a visa to enter the United States, including its territories,’ wrote Zephranie Buetow, DHS’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs. ‘However, Public Law 110-229, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 (CNRA), established the Guam-Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Visa Waiver Program codified at Immigration and Nationality Act § 212(l).’
‘The CNRA requires DHS to identify countries from which the CNMI receives a ‘significant economic benefit’ from the number of visitors for pleasure within the year preceding enactment,’ Buetow continued, adding that DHS determined that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) ‘met this economic threshold in 2009.’
Buetow, citing the policy, said that PRC nationals ‘may travel’ to Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands ‘without a visa for the purpose of a temporary visit for business or pleasure for up to 14 days.’
Buetow said those PRC nationals ‘are not authorized for employment.’
‘Individuals without a visa are not authorized to travel to other parts of the United States, including Guam,’ Buetow wrote, adding that when they are encountered at CNMI airports, U.S. Customs and Border Protection ‘will prohibit their onward travel to other U.S. destinations.’
Buetow added, ‘DHS remains vigilant in its screening and vetting duties, which focus on rooting out exploitation of our immigrant and nonimmigrant visa processes, including by identifying, and where necessary denying entry to, high-risk travelers.’
But Republican lawmakers are blasting the Biden administration for keeping the ‘loophole’ in place.
‘The Biden administration shamefully defends an outdated immigration policy while our national security is on the line,’ Ernst told Fox News Digital. ‘Allowing our military base and national secrets in Guam to remain at risk shows just how seriously this president takes the threat of China.’
Ernst told Fox News Digital that the Chinese Communist Party ‘has already proven they will stop at nothing to infiltrate the United States, and that threat is increasing every day as Chinese nationals use a visa loophole to gain access to our critical military installations in Guam.’
‘We must change this visa policy and put an end to Chinese nationals accessing our homeland for any malign activity,’ she said.
And Dunn slammed DHS, saying the agency responded ‘with willful ignorance of ongoing national security concerns.’
‘They confirmed that the current statute allows Chinese nationals to enter the commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands for 14 days visa-free; however, they fail to see why it’s critical that we must implement the requirement of a B-1/B-2 visa to enter the CMNI to successfully deter the Chinese Communist Party’s aggression and transnational repression,’ Dunn told Fox News Digital. ‘Law enforcement does an outstanding job capturing those with ill-intent, but look how DHS handles our border crisis.’
He added, ‘We cannot risk the same thing occurring in the CNMI.’
The comments come amid separate concerns about an increase in Chinese nationals arriving at the U.S. border illegally. That number has surged more than 6,300% in recent years, further fueling national security fears that came back into focus last week when a Chinese immigrant was detained at a Marine base in California.
There have been 22,233 encounters of Chinese nationals crossing illegally at the northern and southern border so far in fiscal 2024, which began in October. That means this year is likely to significantly exceed last year’s total of 24,125.
That figure was itself a massive increase over the previous two years. There were just 342 apprehensions of Chinese nationals in fiscal 2021 and 1,987 in fiscal 2022, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
Fox News Digital has reached out to DHS for comment.