The Biden Administration reported this week that it has increased the number of daily appointments available for asylum applications through the CBP One mobile app.
Blas Núñez-Neto, Undersecretary of Border Policy and Immigration of the Department of Homeland Security, indicated this Thursday that they will continue to increase the figure, after the end on May 11 of Title 42, a rule that facilitated express expulsions under the argument of the pandemic. .
In the opinion of the government spokesman, the foregoing reflects the commitment of the Biden Government to continue expanding legal channels for migrants, through safe and orderly tools.
The Government increased the number of daily appointments available through the application to 1,250. In early May, the number of appointments rose from 740 to 1,000 slots available for migrants waiting in Mexico to enter the US.
Approximately, the immigration authorities were attending some 20,000 appointments a month. From now on, they hope to double that number or process 40,000 appointments in that period.
CBP One is available to people of any nationality who apply while in central and northern Mexico, and seek to enter by land.
Undocumented immigrants seeking an asylum appointment in the United States must register through the system to schedule one.
Biden Administration officials have been emphatic that foreigners who do not have a visa, sponsor, or legal cause to enter the country and do not use the CBP One application will be deported expeditiously. They could even be punished with up to five years of being banned from entering the US under other rules such as Title 8.
The US immigration authorities seek to encourage legal migration with initiatives such as CBP One.
At the beginning of the year, the Biden government announced that it will accept more than 30,000 migrants a month from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti as part of an expansion of the program for which it already grants humanitarian permits to Venezuelans.
At the same time, officials will deport to Mexico those who cross the border without permission.
For activists like Enrique Lucero, Tijuana’s director of immigration affairs, the announced increase would not have a great impact on the processes given the number of undocumented immigrants waiting for an appointment.
“It’s not a big deal,” the manager told the Associated Press. “It is still very low and not enough for the pent-up demand,” he added.
As of last Monday, some 20,000 immigrants remained in more than 130 shelters in northern Mexico, according to estimates by the United Nations International Organization for Migration.
Additionally, some 1.6 million asylum seekers await a court hearing to defend their cases, according to 2022 data from the TRAC research center at Syracuse University in New York cited by Telemundo.
However, after the end of Title 42, the data points to a sustained drop in border apprehensions. It is also estimated that the number of people waiting on the other side of the southern border has decreased.
The latest available figures show that the Border Patrol has made some 3,000 apprehensions of people who tried to cross into the country illegally, the lowest number since the start of the Biden Administration in 2021.
Keep reading:
Mexico seeks immigrants to apply for asylum through an application similar to CBP One
Hundreds of migrants ask at the northern border of Mexico that the CBP-One application not be eliminated to enter the United States legally.
Federal judge prohibits the Biden government from releasing migrants who cross the border after the end of Title 42 without a court date