Donald Trump’s short attention span has a tendency to flit from one issue to the next. But shrewd and shameless use of nationalist politics and xenophobia has been central to and a constant of his pitch since his first campaign. One recent major target: Chinese immigrants.

Since the pandemic, tens of thousands of Chinese people have fled their country and entered the United States through the southern border without authorization. There is even a name for this phenomenon: zouxian (Chinese for “walk the route/line”), referring to Chinese people embarking on an immigration route starting in Ecuador and traveling north to Mexico to cross the border to the US. It’s a new wave of Chinese immigration driven by difficulties in applying for a US visa during the pandemic, escalating political repression, implementation of draconian COVID-19 lockdown policies, and slow economic recovery in China, as well as easy access to online information about zouxian.

Predictably, Trump and his allies have spread rumors that the zouxian immigrants are spies or drug smugglers sent by the Chinese government to harm American society, and that they are part of an attempt to establish a Chinese army within the United States. Like the rumors about pet-eating Haitians, these claims are baseless. Once he takes office, Trump has vowed to declare a national emergency and deploy the military to deport unauthorized immigrants. According to news reports, undocumented Chinese immigrants of military age will be the first group targeted for deportation by the Trump administration.