The app was deactivated on President Donald Trump’s first day in office.
Immediately following the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th president, the controversial CBP One app used by migrants outside the United States to schedule appointments at U.S. ports of entry was deactivated.
“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One™ that previously allowed undocumented immigrants to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been canceled,” a
notice on the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website reads.
CBP did not respond by publication time to a request for more details regarding the app’s deactivation, including the rationale behind the decision and whether it is permanent.
The CBP One app was first released in 2020 and expanded in early 2021 after President Joe Biden took office and Alejandro Mayorkas was appointed to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Biden administration billed the app as an expansion of “legal pathways” for migration into the United States and praised its usefulness in streamlining migrant processing.
In March 2024, CBP called the
app “a key component of DHS’s efforts to incentivize noncitizens to use lawful, safe, humane, and orderly pathways.”
“Use of the CBP One™ app to schedule appointments at ports of entry has increased CBP’s capacity to process migrants more efficiently and orderly while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who endanger and profit from vulnerable migrants,” CBP stated at the time.
Migrants arriving at a port of entry with a CBP One appointment undergo national security checks but are not screened for asylum during processing. Instead, they are granted humanitarian parole, allowing them to work and receive a notice to appear in immigration court. It is during these proceedings, which often take years to resolve, that they can request asylum.
Critics say the app was widely used by migrants to gain easier entry into the United States. Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee said in October 2023 that the vast majority of migrants who had sought appointments through the app had been released into the country on parole with a notice to appear. Documents provided by the DHS to the committee indicated that this amounted to 266,000 otherwise inadmissible individuals out of more than 278,000 who had scheduled appointments.
“These numbers are proof that Mayorkas’ operation is a smokescreen for the mass release of individuals into this country who would otherwise have zero claim to be admitted,” committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.)
said in a statement at the time.
The committee also expressed concern about the app’s possible abuse by drug cartels.
Later, in March 2024, House Republicans
said the app was part of a “racket” to expedite illegal immigration into the country.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a
lawsuit against the Biden administration over the use of the app, alleging that the administration had “deliberately conceived of this phone app with the goal of illegally preapproving more foreign aliens to enter the country and go where they please once they arrive.”
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, has
argued that the CBP One app allowed migrants to “essentially schedule their illegal immigration into the United States.”
The move to deactivate the app appears to be part of Trump’s pledge to ramp up border security and crack down on illegal immigration. As part of that effort, Trump has vowed to implement the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and reverse Biden administration policies such as the infamous catch-and-release program, in which illegal immigrants are released into the United States to await their asylum hearings.
