4 min readNew DelhiJan 23, 2025 08:03 PM IST
First published on: Jan 23, 2025 at 06:03 AM IST
Donald Trump Deportation Programme: Among his first steps as President, Donald Trump cut off access to a mobile app that allowed migrants to apply to legally enter the US as asylum-seekers.
The CBP One entry programme, instituted by former President Joe Biden, had allowed thousands of migrants to schedule appointments at entry points across the US-Mexico border. In a press release on Monday (January 20), the US Customs and Border Protection said that it had initiated “removal of the scheduling functionality” for the app and “existing appointments have been cancelled.”
According to an AP report, the app had enabled entry for nearly one million people since January 2023. Thousands of appointments scheduled till February were cancelled.
What is CBP One?
The CBP One app worked as a lottery system that awarded 1,450 people daily with appointments at eight border crossings. It allowed migrants to plan interviews with immigration authorities to seek immigration parole before reaching the US border.
Formally launched in January 2023, the app replaced a convoluted system of exemptions to Title 42, a pandemic-era public health order used by the US government since March 2020 to deny asylum. Until 2023, asylum-seekers were forced to wait in large camps in Mexico waiting for an exemption to Title 42, unless they tried to cross the border illegally. Since then, CBP One has served as the sole route for asylum-seeking amidst a larger crackdown by the Biden administration on illegal border crossing.
The app’s implementation was not a breeze – migrants seeking an appointment often complained of technical glitches and long waits for an initial screening to determine if they were qualified to apply.
According to a report in The Washington Post, CBP One was originally launched by US Customs to control commercial trucking companies trying to schedule cargo inspections. This was repurposed and relaunched to become the sole route for asylum-seekers from Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
And what is immigration parole?
CBP One allowed asylum seekers to seek immigration parole without securing formal admission into the US. According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), this enables an individual “who may be inadmissible or otherwise ineligible for admission into the United States, to be paroled into the United States for a temporary period.”
Parole may be granted for urgent humanitarian reasons or “significant public benefits”, according to the authority’s discretion. Such parole cannot be used solely to avoid normal visa processing procedures and timelines, to bypass inadmissibility waiver processing, or to replace established refugee processing channels.
Why is curtailing immigration a key policy priority for Trump?
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump has maintained that Biden had allowed an influx of undocumented migrants and said he would launch a massive deportation programme throughout his presidential campaign.
He followed through with this promise in his inaugural address, promising to “begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense”.
“All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” he added.
Removing the app comes amidst a series of sweeping presidential executive orders curtailing immigration, including declaring a national emergency at the US southern border and launching the process to end birthright citizenship.
This action may prove to be counterproductive: CBP One has long been touted by Homeland Security staff as having driven down migrant crossings and providing asylum-seekers with an orderly way to apply to the US. The closure of the app will likely trigger an influx of illegal immigrants across the southern border.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) challenged the order in the US District Court in Washington on Monday.
In his first steps as president, Donald Trump cut off access to CBP One, a mobile app that allowed migrants to apply to legally enter the US as asylum-seekers. (Photos - New York Times) 
Share
