Migrants Dismayed After Learning Trump Shut Down App To Apply For Asylum Minutes Away From Appointments

The Donald Trump administration shut down CBP One, the app used by migrants to legally apply for asylum at ports of entry in the southern border, minutes after taking office. The now president had vowed to get rid of the app for months, calling it the "Kamala (Harris) phone app for smuggling illegals."

The impact was immediate: Washington Post journalist Arelis R. Hernández published images showing migrants reacting with dismay after being told the app was no longer working at ports of entry in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. "Migrants in Ciudad Juárez who were waiting for their 1 pm CBP1 parole appointments learned 20 minutes ago that the app has shut down & those appointments are no longer valid," Hernández explained.

CBS News' Camilo Montoya-Galvez said the outlet he works fro estimated that around 270,000 migrants continued to wait in Mexico hoping to be granted an asylum request.

Shortly after Donald Trump was sworn in, a notice on the Customs and Border Protection website announced that the app, which allowed migrants to schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry, was no longer available.

Trump's nominee to be the next Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, had previously promised to shut down the App on her first day in office when answering a question from Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who called the App "concierge service for illegals," and said it allowed them to "apply ahead of time using their phone but not provide evidence that they need asylum."

The Biden administration rolled out the CBP One app in January 2023. It intended to "reduce wait times and crowds at U.S. ports of entry and allow for safe, orderly, and humane processing." Since then, the app provided more than 900,000 people with appointments to get screened and petition for asylum, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

The CBP One App had also come under fire in August for its failure to check the backgrounds of those using it in a report from an internal watchdog within the Department of Homeland Security titled "CBP Did Not Thoroughly Plan for CBP One Risks, and Opportunities to Implement Improvements Exist."

The report pointed out that the app cannot properly check the information of migrants, who claim a U.S. address as their intended destination. An analysis of the CBP One data found that some unrelated migrants repeatedly listed the same U.S. address. It also stated that CBP lacks a system to regularly analyze data from the app across different points of entry. Such analysis could provide valuable information to help CBP officers during their interviews with migrants.