The Flaws of the “CBP One” App: Migrants Struggle with Asylum Process in the United States

Seeking asylum in the United States will largely rely, from Friday, on an application. But this technological process appears disconnected from the dramatic reality of the border, where telephones, wifi and electricity are a luxury for migrants.

The “CBP One” application from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was designed to centralize asylum requests in the United States. But migrants crammed into Mexico are crying in frustration over the tool’s flaws, rated 2.5 stars by Apple Store users.

“It’s incredible that an application practically decides our lives and our future”, complains to AFP Jeremy de Pablos, a 21-year-old Venezuelan, who has been camping for weeks in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican town on the border. with Texas.

Mr. de Pablos, who has a dark complexion, says that the most difficult thing is to overcome the pitfall of the facial recognition tool of the application. “It’s bingo, she recognizes who she wants to recognize,” he sighs.

“The real wall is the application. Not this one,” he adds, pointing to the imposing wall that winds along the US-Mexico border.

Washington launched “CBP One” in January ahead of the lifting of “Title 42,” the health measure Donald Trump had used to close the border during the pandemic.

Title 42, which will expire Thursday at 11:59 p.m. Washington time (03:59 GMT Friday), gave US authorities the option of immediately turning back all migrants entering the country, including asylum seekers. Millions of people, expelled under this measure, have created improvised camps in Mexico.

The new rules, from Friday, require asylum seekers to first request an appointment on “CBP One”, or risk being turned away.

The authorities have increased the daily quotas as well as the time slots for registering on “CBP One”. However, the app is not accessible to everyone.

– Obsolete or broken mobiles –

Many migrants arrive at the border after a grueling journey, from which getting out alive is no small feat. Their phones are stolen. Or they lose them by swimming across rivers. Most have outdated or damaged mobiles.

Antonio Sánchez Ventura, who arrived in Ciudad Juarez with his brother, says he was stripped of everything on the way. He lives on the streets and feeds on donations. His only goal now is to find the money to buy a phone and download “CBP One”.

Migrants waiting in Ciudad Juarez often live in tents without electricity. They recharge their telephones, in improvised stations with precarious entanglements of wires. They spend their last money buying credit to access the internet. But this is where the second part of the challenge begins.

“Look, it’s blocked,” plague Ronald Huerta, a Venezuelan, unable to go beyond the language configuration of the application.

Not far from there, Ana Paola, 14, is crying bitterly: an update of the app erased all her data as well as that of her family.

– “I’ve had it up to here !” –

“I’m exhausted! I’m fed up!” the teenager sobs as she frantically clicks the “send” button to recreate her family’s profiles. With the invariable response: “Error 500”.

“It’s a nightmare, a real torture. This application undermines us emotionally and psychologically,” adds his father, Juan Pavon, a trader who fled Venezuela with his family.

For weeks, his wife struggled to request appointments for the whole family on “CBP One” using an old iPhone. But in the end she only got a slot for herself and now the family is separated by the border.

As the end of “Title 42” approaches, concern mounts. Many lose patience and cross into the United States illegally.

“I waited and waited and waited, but I had had enough. There was no way to get an appointment,” says Luis Quintana, a Venezuelan who spent three months on the streets of Ciudad Juarez and who, frustrated, finally decided to sneak through a hole in the wall to El Paso, Texas.

“It’s frustrating to see this important part of the process at the mercy of technology that’s often broken and not available to everyone,” said Raul Pinto, attorney at the US Immigration Council.

Washington announced this week that the application will see improvements. “We hope this will solve some problems,” Mr. Pinto says. “But we are very disappointed that there is no alternative for people to access something as important and vital as the asylum procedure.”