Must-watch: Chinese migrants are entering US illegally. We follow their perilous odyssey

NECOCLI, Colombia and SAN DIEGO: When Lucy was living in the city of Chengdu, she was studying at a church school. In China, that is illegal, so the school operated underground.

But the church got banned, and the school was shut down. For a couple of months, classes were taught in her home. That, too, was discovered, and the authorities put a stop to it.

“Our landlord in Chengdu later came to us and said he couldn’t renew our lease,” recounted Dad. After that, he and his wife came to a decision. “We wanted to take our daughter out of China,” said Mum.

Dad did the research, trawling through YouTube and Telegram. And in December, they and their 13-year-old daughter were in South America, following in the footsteps of thousands of Chinese citizens who have tried entering the United States illegally.

While Central and South Americans formed the bulk of the 2.54 million migrants who entered illegally via the southern border last year, the Chinese are the fastest-growing migrant group encountered by the US Border Patrol.

There is a newly coined expression on the Chinese internet referring to what they are doing: Walking the line.

It is a line that starts as far south as Ecuador — the closest country to the US that allows Chinese passport holders to enter visa-free — which means taking a long, arduous detour to reach the US.

A worried Mum said: “My daughter isn’t an athletic child. She gets headaches if she walks too much. I don’t know if she can handle it.”

Smugglers take groups of migrants through the jungle to reach Panama. But the trek itself is not as great a peril as the drug cartel controlling the area.

Asked if there was no turning back, a teary Dad replied: “No. I want to be free — free from fear — (and to) say and do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t hurt others. I want to experience that.”

WATCH: Why we left China with our 13-year-old, and risked our lives to get to the US illegally (19:56)