Border-crossing numbers plunge as CBP's online app, new deportation rules take effect

The U.S. government’s two-pronged approach at the U.S.-Mexico border – migrants now use a smartphone-based app to start the asylum process and face deportation if they make an unauthorized border crossing – is leading to a steep drop in the number of migrants intercepted at the border, according to U.S. officials.

Officials tout U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s new CBP One app for smartphones and other border policies as key reasons for the decline at the border, though migrant and human rights advocates note that other factors – including coils of razor wire along the Texas banks of the Rio Grande – could also be playing a role.

Border agents encountered about 100,000 asylum-seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border in June, a 50% drop from the 204,561 encountered in May, according to a senior CBP official. Advocates are also reporting fewer migrants in shelters along the border.

The effectiveness of President Joe Biden’s border policies will be one of the most closely watched issues ahead of next year’s presidential election. But just how successful the app and policies have been in driving down numbers at the border remains in debate.

“It’s a mixture,” said Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, director of the Sidewalk School, which assists migrants in Reynosa and Matamoros, Mexico. “People are getting appointments. People are using it. Then, of course, there are a lot of people who don’t have access to phones.”

How does the CBP One app work?

Agency officials have experimented with the CBP One app for years but relaunched it in mid-May after ending Title 42, the pandemic-era health policy, which expired in May. That rule allowed border agents to return migrants to Mexico.

With the app, migrants can apply for a chance at asylum in the U.S. at a port of entry. The app could be used from central or northern Mexico, allowing migrants to apply away from dangerous northern Mexico towns. Asylum-seekers who don’t have phones could apply for an appointment using borrowed tablets or smartphones.

Officials are allowing up to 43,500 migrants a month to enter the U.S. via an appointment on the app. Those migrants still need to pass through a "credible fear" interview and make their case in court to remain in the U.S. Another 30,000 are being allowed in through a parole program for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

Those caught entering without authorization between ports of entry are being held in detention centers and subject to rapid deportation hearings.

That's a change from earlier eras when migrants who crossed the remote border could then ask for an asylum hearing once they were found by a border agent. Now, they're required to use the app before entering.

"CBP One remains a key component of (the Department of Homeland Security's) efforts to incentivize migrants to use lawful processes and disincentivize attempts at irregular or unlawful entry to the United States," Troy Miller, CBP's acting commissioner, said in a statement. "The app reduces the potential for smugglers or others to exploit migrants as it provides a direct system to request appointments."

What other factors are driving down border crossings?

Though CBP officials said the new app and the specter of being deported have deterred illegal crossings, shelter advocates claim that other factors are playing a role as well. In Texas, state officials have ordered concertina wire strung on some banks on the U.S.-side of the Rio Grande and placed large buoys in the river to deter crossings.

In Eagle Pass, stretches of razor wire have dwindled the number of migrants arriving at the Mission: Border Hope shelter from about 1,200 a day last year to between zero and 100 a day today, said Valeria Wheeler, the shelter’s executive director. The migrants who do stagger in often have slashes from the razor wire and are confused over the shifting policy changes. Overall, the moods of the arriving asylum-seekers are at all-time lows, she said.

“It’s very sad,” Wheeler said. “I’d rather have a lot of people arriving like we had but happy with hope than less people confused and sad.”

Many migrants who come across between ports of entry are also being automatically placed in detention centers for rapid deportation hearings, even though they may have valid asylum claims, said Nithya Nathan-Pineau, policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

More than 30,000 migrants were being held in immigration detention centers as of July 2, nearly double the number held at the beginning of Biden’s term, according to the TRAC immigration project at Syracuse University. Successfully gaining asylum becomes much more difficult in detention because of a general lack of legal representation, Nathan-Pineau said.

“It’s very concerning,” she said. “Lots of people who are really vulnerable and need protection are in a very precarious situation right now.”

Are the new policies safe?

While some immigrant advocates said migrants are using the CBP One app and getting asylum interviews at ports of entry, others point to the two-pronged policies as endangering asylum-seekers.

A report published by Human Rights First on Thursday detailed the risks faced by migrants in the two months since the policy went into place. The report, based on attorney and researcher interviews of hundreds of asylum-seekers on the border, raised concerns of kidnappings and assaults as migrants waited for a CBP One appointment, including a Venezuelan family kidnapped and tortured in Reynosa and an Honduran woman raped in Matamoros.

In some cases, parents told researchers that they sleep in makeshift encampments with cable wires tied around their children to prevent them from being abducted in the middle of the night.

“Far from being a success," the report said, the new policies in recent months "endangered the lives of thousands of asylum-seeking children, families, and adults forced to wait in Mexico in danger."

Follow Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.