Within minutes of Donald Trump being sworn in as president Monday, a federal phone app used to facilitate illegal entry into the country was terminated.
“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One™ that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced.
CBP first launched the app on Oct. 28, 2020, for commercial purposes to facilitate the efficient movement of commercial goods into the U.S. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas repurposed it in January 2023 and subsequently revised it in May and November 2023 to allow 1,000 daily appointments for foreign nationals to obtain entry into the U.S., the majority of whom would otherwise be denied entry under federal immigration law.
CBP claimed the phone app was “a key scheduling tool and part of DHS’s efforts to incentivize noncitizens to use lawful, safe, humane, and orderly pathways and processes.”
It also instructed “noncitizens located in Central or Northern Mexico who seek to travel to the United States” to use the app “to submit information in advance and schedule an appointment to present themselves at Southwest Border land ports of entry.” The ports identified were Nogales, Arizona; Brownsville, Eagle Pass, Hidalgo, Laredo, and El Paso, Texas; and Calexico and San Ysidro, California.
After the app was launched, Texas sued, arguing, “The Biden Administration deliberately conceived of this phone app with the goal of illegally pre-approving more foreign aliens to enter the country and go where they please once they arrive.” Under current law, foreign nationals are allowed to be “paroled” or released into the country on “a case-by-case and temporary basis, for significant public benefit or urgent humanitarian need.”
This wasn’t the case as millions were released en masse through the parole programs, resulting in multiple lawsuits by dozens of state attorneys general.
The app was another example of Mayorkas violating federal law, House Republicans who impeached him for creating it and other parole programs argued last year.
“Secretary Mayorkas has ignored a co-equal branch of government by unlawfully abusing the CBP One app to grant mass parole to hundreds of thousands of otherwise-inadmissible aliens at our Southwest border under the smokescreen of lawful entry – often with limited or no vetting,” U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-LA, and former U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, R-NC, said during a congressional hearing investigating the app. “We know the vast majority of the individuals who schedule an appointment with the app are released into the interior, showing this now-impeached DHS secretary has no intention of ending the historic crisis at our borders or the perverse incentives that helped create it.”
Mayorkas claimed the app would help reduce long lines at ports of entry and illegal border crossings between ports of entry. According to CBP data, the opposite occurred.
Within one year, the greatest number of foreign nationals illegally entered the U.S. in history of nearly 4 million in fiscal 2023 and nearly 3 million in fiscal 2024, The Center Square exclusively reported.
Under Mayorkas and the Biden administration, more than 14 million illegal border crossers were reported, including more than two million who evaded capture known as gotaways, The Center Square exclusively reported.
In December, CBP processed nearly 44,000 illegal border crossers using the app at ports of entry, up from more than 43,000 in November, according to CBP data.
Since the scheduling function of the app was introduced in January 2023 and through the end of December 2024, more than 936,500 illegal border crossers successfully scheduled appointments through the app. The top nationalities processed with app appointments were Venezuelans, Cubans and Mexicans, CBP said.
The several million released into the country through the app and other parole programs will be targeted for removal through Trump’s massive deportation plan, with violent offenders at the top of the list, The Center Square has reported.
