CBP One App

Written By: MIMS Cohort 6 student Magaly Velasco-Escobar

The United States Customs and Border Patrol’s Office of Field Operations (O.F.O.) created the C.B.P. One app in 2020 and had good intentions in modernizing the immigration process in the United States. When the app was created, the idea was for migrants and asylum seekers to use the app to check case status in real-time, receive notifications for scheduled interviews or court hearings, or schedule an appointment for asylum processing in the United States. Due to the expulsion of migrants into Mexico, under Title 42, the app was a good idea in preventing migrants from reaching the border and being asked to wait in Mexico. Additionally, the app was meant to reduce COVID-19 exposures by allowing migrants and asylum seekers to submit their initial claims and supporting documentation electronically, reducing the number of in-person appearances. The process of using the application seems relatively straightforward. You download the app and begin by creating an account, where you enter your biographical information, identify if you are a traveler or broker, and your method of entering the border, such as by land, plane, or boat. Once completed, you must submit a live photo of yourself and be directed to the appointment page to select your preferred date/time and port of entry. At this appointment, the asylum seeker has their credible fear interview, after which they will either be released into the United States to begin their asylum process or be deported. Despite the app’s presumed good intentions, the app is problematic in more ways than one.

The app is yet another barrier to making a legal right to seek asylum inaccessible to lower-income, non-English speaking, and darker-skinned migrants. First and foremost is the idea that to “legally” seek asylum at the border, a migrant must make an appointment through a smartphone app that requires a secure internet connection, tech literacy, and language skills in one of the languages available. At the time of this writing, the app is only available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, therefore making the app inaccessible to migrants who do not speak these languages. While there is a large population of asylum seekers from Haiti and Central America, research has shown an increase in migrants from African countries and other parts of the world traveling through Mexico. By not having the app accessible in different languages, asylum seekers must pay large fees for translation services, which lower-income migrants cannot afford or do not have access to.

Additionally, the app has major flaws with its live photo feature, which must be submitted to schedule an appointment at the border. Research on the app has proven time and time again that the app tends to disproportionately reject photos submitted by those with darker skin tones. The app also misidentifies children or transgender migrants who may appear differently at the border than their photo, creating identity verification problems and further delaying their asylum process. To reiterate, an asylum seeker cannot proceed to make an appointment through the app until the live photo is submitted, which, as I have mentioned, is incredibly difficult for families with young children, migrants of color, and transgender migrants. Those who can submit their photos successfully face yet another barrier, the app’s glitchy interface on their appointment scheduler page.

When the app launched, migrants who could submit their photos and proceed with their scheduling successfully were faced with a message stating that no appointments were available and to check back later. Migrants would try multiple times for an appointment and be treated with the same results. The number of appointments available is severely limited compared to the number of potential applicants. Also, families were disproportionately prejudiced in making appointments because of how the system is set up, which requires each individual to have an appointment, including children. This means that a two-month-old must create a profile, submit a live photo and schedule an appointment. Given the scarcity of appointments, families could not schedule appointments together, and priority was given to single individual adults. Families were faced with separating or waiting for an unknown amount of time to attempt to get an appointment together.

With the termination of Title 42, the Biden Administration has enacted new rules for asylum seekers at the border, including the requirement that migrants use the C.B.P. One app to schedule appointments before reaching the U.S. border. They have even stated they will be expanding the number of available applications per day. Under the new rules, migrants must schedule an appointment using the C.B.P. One app. The app is available throughout Mexico, theoretically meaning that a migrant can schedule their appointment in, say, Mexico City and travel to the port of entry after the fact. This is important to note because appointments are scarce, and staying in a border town while waiting for an appointment could make them cartel or gang violence victims. On the other hand, those who reach the border without an appointment must prove they attempted to schedule an appointment but were unable to, establish extreme & exceptional circumstances, or provide evidence that they applied for asylum/ humanitarian protection in a country of transit and were denied, once again providing unnecessary hurdles to a legal right to seek asylum that disproportionately targets both low-income immigrants and migrants of color.

While immigration advocates disagree and strongly advocate against implementing this new requirement, it appears the app is here to stay. Therefore, many improvements must be made to allow for a more equitable and accessible platform for all asylum seekers who are now required to use it:

1. C.B.P. must increase the number of available appointments (higher than the new amount) as the ending of Title 42 could create a surge of migrants at the border.

2. The app’s A.I. interface must be fixed to stop disproportionality in rejecting photos from migrants with darker skin tones and stop misidentifying transgender migrants.

3. The app needs to be accessible to all migrants; therefore, the app must be available in a significantly higher number of languages.

Despite objections to making an appointment a requirement for all asylum seekers, the changes above will help make the process slightly more accessible to others.

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