Luis Guerrero, who had fled his native Venezuela, was living in Colombia when he learned of a legitimate way to enter the country: a smartphone application developed by the US government.
Five months later — after making it through , a forest trek, a kidnapping ordeal and a lengthy wait in Mexico— he, his wife and their 11- year- older son lined up with scores of different asylum seekers to traverse a bridge into Texas for immigration interviews scheduled through the app.
As the community inched toward the wall, Guerrero explained that companions had encouraged them to , cross the border illegally , and turn themselves in to say prison.
” But no,” he replied. ” I wanted to do it the right way.”
A few hours afterwards, an representative from U. S. Customs and Border Protection handed Guerrero a slip of paper with a court date for 2025.
Then they traveled to a bus stop in Houston, where they planned to live with companions while Guerrero applied for and submitted an asylum application to the government.
Their story is not uncommon these days, as tens of thousands of migrants cross the border every year. But amid the contentious debate surrounding immigration policy in a U. S. election time, there is no compromise on what lessons to draw from the experience of the Guerrero relatives and others in similar predicaments.
The state game, known as CBP One, has evolved into a significant component of that discussion and a sort of Rorschach check.
The Biden administration applauds the game as a part of the solution to the frontier problems.
American advocates say CBP One is glitch- vulnerable and reduces the straight of prison to a raffle while forcing migrants into a harmful waiting game.
Democratic lawmakers denounce the game as a “open borders” plot that stifles more immigrant arrivals in the country.
The app was created in the middle of the Trump administration, which launched it to stop updates of regular travelers entering the country legitimately.
Foreign nationals can use CBP One to navigate airports and border crossings after downloading it to their phones and entering their passport information.
At the same time, President Donald Trump was invoking a public health rule known as Title 42 to turn away large numbers of asylum seekers entering the country illegally.
President Joe Biden vowed to put in place a more “humane” immigration policy when he took office. Soon after, however, illegal border crossings soared, causing border chaos, flooding already-stressed immigration courts, and igniting White House criticism.
Biden officials seized upon the previously obscure CBP One, announcing last May that asylum seekers would be required to schedule appointments at the border and use the app to do so, out of fear of a new border crush as they  prepare to lift Title 42.
Migrants must reach central or northern Mexico before the app will even let them try.
The administration contends that the app prevents illegal crossings, allows for advance screening, and frees police from seizing narcotics, arms, and cartel money.
At a congressional hearing about the app in March, acting executive assistant commissioner for the CBP’s office of field operations, Diane Sabatino testified in favor of the app in March.” Over the last ten years, a number of instances have occurred where migrants have overloaded our teams,” Sabatino said.
The government has made it more difficult for migrants to enter border crossings and seek asylum in order to encourage the use of the app. Border agents routinely turn away “walk- ins”. Additionally, entering the country without authorization could put off future asylum applications.
The app is used daily to make 1,450 appointments along the Southwest border. The greatest share of appointments go to people from Venezuela, Haiti and Mexico.
Migrants have used the app to make nearly 550, 000 appointments since the start of the year.
Immigration advocates claim the app is insufficient despite those figures.
” The CBP One app cannot and should not be the sole way for people to seek safety in our country”, said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA, which on Thursday released a report titled “CBP One — A Blessing or a Trap”?
Some migrants fail to schedule appointments because they do n’t have smartphones or regular internet access, or because the app crashes or does n’t give enough appointments to meet the demand.
Only three weeks in advance can appointments be made with the app. Migrants have little choice but to try again the following day if nothing is available.
As a result, the advocates say, thousands of people have been left , stranded in Mexico for months,  , dodging cartel gangsters, crooked cops and other criminals.
According to Ari Sawyer, a border researcher for Human Rights Watch, “using a smartphone app sanitizes things and makes it feel like it’s safe and unbiased.” It’s abusive and seriously putting people in danger, the author contends.
After fleeing her home in the violence- scarred Mexican state of Michoacán, María Medina, 27, said she took her two young children to the U. S. border last month in hopes of claiming asylum.
She remarked,” They would n’t let me in.
Instead, she was instructed to use the app to schedule an appointment. She said she did n’t know what it was. She was now imprisoned in Tijuana.
Mónica Esmeralda, 25, claimed she and her family escaped to the Mexican border in November after being threatened by a gang that extorts money from businesses in her hometown of Ayutla de los Libres, Guerrero.
” They said that if we did n’t pay they would kidnap my daughter or one of my nieces”, Esmeralda said. ” We decided to leave.”
Four months later, she and her husband, three nieces, and a nephew were constantly refreshing the app while they were living in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez.
” No appointment yet”, she lamented.
When Guerrero, the Venezuelan immigrant, arrived in Mexico, he believed the most difficult part of the journey had passed. His family had trekked through Central America for 60 miles before making it across the jungle-strip between Colombia and Panama.
For weeks he logged into the app from Mexico City in hopes of making an appointment. Things did n’t go as planned when he finally secured one for the Texas border city of Laredo on December 26.
Guerrero claimed that he and his wife and son were slammed into a car and taken to a cartel safe house moments after arriving at the airport on the Mexican side of the border in Nuevo Laredo, which is renowned for shake-downs and kidnapping of immigrants.
Guerrero said the kidnappers demanded$ 800 a person to release them.
He said,” We told them we did n’t have the money.” And we did n’t have any families who could pay in Venezuela or the United States.
The kidnappers gave up after two days and let them go, apparently accepting that the family had no one who could fork over a decent ransom.
Guerrero and his traumatized family traveled to Monterrey, Mexico, and found employment hawking sweets and peanuts after missing their border visit.
After missing an appointment, Guerrero re-registered with CBP One and continued to log in each day to play what many migrants have referred to as” the asylum lottery.”
The biggest critics of the app are not immigrant rights activists, but Republican lawmakers.
According to U.S. law, they accuse the Biden administration of plotting to accept immigrants who are escaping economic hardship.
Rep. Dan Bishop, R-North Carolina, claimed in March at a hearing of a Homeland Security subcommittee he chairs, that CBP One is “facilitating mass illegal immigration into the United States.”
At the same hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R- Georgia, scolded the CBP’s Sabatino:” The CBP app is like a welcoming app: ‘ Welcome to America! Come on in! You are not a person’s vetter.
In response, Sabatino said that migrants using the app must provide biographical details and selfies that allow for a “robust” screening against law enforcement criminal records, watch lists, intelligence reports and biometric databases.
However, some critics question how thorough a person’s vetting can be done for a wide range of nationalities, including those with no or little diplomatic contact with the United States.
According to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington research group that wants to reduce immigration, “you’re letting in hundreds of thousands of people just because they made an online appointment and cleared some elementary database checks.” ” You’re just encouraging more and more people to come to the border”.
According to the CBP, about 95 % of migrants who schedule appointments through the app are permitted to enter the country.
The majority of people then file a petition for asylum. That triggers a review process to determine whether applicants have a legitimate fear of persecution back in their homelands because of their race, religion, nationality, social group or political opinion.
Losing a case for asylum does not force a person to leave the country.
A third of the nearly 500, 000 deported in the fiscal year 2023 did not show up for the final hearings and were ordered to be removed in absentia, according to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees immigration courts.
In San Diego, migrants emerging from their CBP One interviews on a recent afternoon stepped onto U. S. territory under a brilliant sun. Many people thought their country had arrived in the US, but they both appeared stunned and disoriented.
Nelson Daz, 42, a car mechanic from outside Havana who crossed with his cousin and two Cuban friends, said,” We do n’t have to worry anymore.”
On the U. S. side of the border, they took photos and selfies against the backdrop of fluttering U. S. and California flags. The 30 foot-tall border wall loomed a few yards out of the frame.
As they awaited hearing dates later this year or in 2025, the four soon made their way to the San Diego airport for a flight to Miami.
Another recent arrival explained how she and her family had waited for six months at a shelter in Tijuana, cooking and cleaning to defray costs while she repeatedly logged on to the app to try for an appointment for herself, her husband, son, daughter- in- law and two friends.
” I tried every single day,” said 40-year-old Wendy More, who had fled Guatemala. ” Sometimes at 11 in the morning. Sometimes at 3 a. m. Then I saw someone on social media say 5 o’clock in the morning was the best time, so I tried that. And five days later, we were able to schedule our appointment according to God’s will.
Based on the violence they claimed to have experienced back home, the six were currently staying with More’s sister in Riverside County while applying for work permits and formally applying for asylum.
” We all feel more secure, more tranquil, not having to hide from anyone in this country”, More said. We battled, but we managed it. Most of the time, it’s just a matter of patience.
As for Guerrero, who made it to his friend’s home in Houston with his wife and son, he said in a telephone interview that he has lined up a job as a handyman for when his work permit comes through.
The family opened a bank account and is looking for a lawyer to assist with their asylum petition, which Guerrero claimed will be based on his opposition to Venezuela’s socialist government.
His wife is considering returning to school. The couple’s son is enrolled in sixth grade and is learning English.
The boy is doing well, and he wants to forget what happened to him in Mexico, Guerrero said. When he began his classes,” He was so happy.”
Guerrero has told friends in Venezuela, including his brother — a cellphone repairman — that the journey to the United States is worth it.
It’s a difficult trip, very challenging, and you need to be prepared, Guerrero said. You require resolve. Also, you need an appointment”.
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Los Angeles Times 2024
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