Cuba: The CBP App for Legal Entry to the USA is Cancelled

It allowed for appointments at the US border for migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti 

Trump announced in his inaugural address his plans to carry out mass deportations and militarize the border.

By EFE / 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – The CBP One mobile application, which allowed migrants from Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti to enter the United States through Mexico, stopped working this Monday, according to the Office of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on its website.

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, who took office on Monday, had already advanced in his inaugural speech his plans to carry out mass deportations and militarize the border.

Through CBP One, migrants who were in Mexican territory could fill out a form with their data and request an appointment to present themselves at an entrance post on the southern border.

The announcement on the CBP website, which refers to migrants in transit in Mexico as “undocumented foreigners,” also warned that the “scheduled” appointments have now been canceled.

Through this application, which began operating in January 2023, more than 930,000 people presented themselves at the ports of entry for the authorities to process their cases, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

In December, the last time official data were published, about 44,000 people entered the United States under this process, although no Cubans. Since the program was established, a total of 110,970 citizens of the Island have accessed US territory through the application, which allocated 1,450 spaces every day for seven ports of entry at the border.

The program was created by Joe Biden’s government as a strategy to control migration across the border, as well as to stop irregular crossings, although in recent months they have been declining. The collapse in the numbers came after the accusations of fraud reported between last July and August.

On July 6, the program was suspended for Venezuelans and days later for other nationalities, until the necessary changes were introduced. Among the irregularities detected in the system were blank forms, phones that did not work, postal codes that did not exist, social security numbers of dead people, repeated texts in thousands of requests and people who presented their documents more than once.

In August, the delivery of sponsors’ fingerprints and a more thorough review of applicants became mandatory, which reactivated the mechanism. For the US Congress, the program promoted by the Biden Government was a “disaster plagued with fraud.”

The process was in turn harshly criticized by human rights organizations, who pointed out that the application restricted access to asylum on the southern border and forced migrants to wait in Mexico, exposed to the violence of the cartels.

Among other measures, Trump promised on Monday to invoke the law of “foreign enemies” that was enacted in 1798, declare a national emergency on the southern border of the United States and designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations.

These measures pave the way for Trump to fulfill his electoral promises to carry out the largest campaign of migrant deportations in history and prevent the passage of migrants and asylum seekers on the border with Mexico.

“We will begin the process of returning the millions of foreign criminals back to where they came from,” the Republican said in front of legislators, politicians and businessmen of technology companies who were present during his inauguration at the Capitol.

During his presidential campaign, Trump stigmatized the migrants who arrived in the United States in recent years, calling them “criminals,” despite the multiple studies that have shown that people born abroad break the law in a lower percentage than those born in the United States.

The Foreign Enemies Act, enacted in 1798, allows the Government to expel outsiders without due process of law and was used during the Government of Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) to create internment camps for citizens of Japanese origin in the United States.

In his speech, Trump promised to use this law so that his government “uses all federal and state forces” to eliminate “the presence of foreign gangs and criminal networks that bring devastation to the United States.”

Regarding the border with Mexico, Trump indicated that he will declare a state of “national emergency” to stop the irregular entry of migrants and restore the policy known as “Stay in Mexico,” established during his previous administration, which forced asylum seekers to wait in the neighboring country while their cases were being processed.

“I will send troops to the southern border to end the disastrous invasion of the southern border,” said the president, adding in turn that he plans to declare the Mexican cartels “terrorist organizations.”

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.

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