SAN DIEGO (AP) — The U.S. is seeing a big increase in Chinese immigrants arriving using a relatively new and perilous route through Panama’s Darién Gap jungle, thanks in part to social media posts and videos providing step-by-step guidance.

Chinese people were the fourth-highest nationality, after Venezuelans, Ecuadorians and Haitians, crossing the Darién Gap during the first nine months of this year, according to Panamanian immigration authorities.

“They’ve lost hope for the future of the country,” said Cai, who now lives in the U.S. “You see among them the educated and the uneducated, white-collar workers as well as small business owners, and those from well-off families.”

Those who cannot obtain a visa but travel to the U.S. by crossing the border illegally to seek asylum usually unite with relatives and friends in major cities such as Los Angeles and New York, where they will find work and establish a foothold.

Some migrants who enter the U.S. at San Diego wait for agents to pick them up in an area between two border walls or in remote mountains east of the city covered with shrubs and large boulders.

U.S. Border Patrol agents sometimes take migrants who have been processed to a transit station in San Diego, where they can charge phones, snack, browse piles of free clothing and get travel advice.

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