On Monday, the Trump administration abruptly shut down a program created by the Joe Biden administration that allowed migrants to use an app to get an appointment to enter the United States through legal ports of entry, signaling the start of President Trump’s promised offensive on the southern border.
Moments after Trump took office, an announcement posted on the CBP One program website indicated that the app would stop working and that “existing appointments have been cancelled.”
The program, which debuted in early 2023, allowed 1,450 migrants daily to schedule a time to show up at a port of entry and request asylum before U.S. immigration courts. More than 900,000 people entered the country using the app from its launch in early 2023 to the end of 2024.
A former Department of Homeland Security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that as of Monday morning about 30,000 migrants had appointments to enter the United States made through the app.
At the El Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, dozens of migrants looking at their phone screens to check if their appointments were still valid were met with the crushing message that they no longer existed.
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