Migrants Can Now Use App to Request Asylum at US-Mexico Border
Under the new system, migrants apply directly to the agency and a government official will determine who gets in.
By Elliot Spagat • Published January 12, 2023 • Updated on January 12, 2023 at 6:44 pm
A group of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador arrives at a bus terminal in the U.S. after crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico aboard, in Texas, United States on April 7, 2021.
The Biden administration on Thursday launched an online appointment system for migrants seeking exemptions from pandemic-era limits on asylum — the U.S. government's latest major step in eight days to overhaul border enforcement.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection began allowing migrants to make appointments up to two weeks out using its website and through CBPOne, a mobile app that the agency has used in limited ways since 2020. CBPOne is poised to replace an opaque, bewildering patchwork of exemptions to a public health order known as Title 42 under which the government has denied migrants' U.S. and international rights to claim asylum since March 2020.
Until now, CBP has arranged exemptions through advocates, churches, attorneys and migrant shelters, without publicly identifying them or saying how many slots were available. The advocates have chosen who gets in, with CBP having final say.
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/migrants-can-now-use-app-to-request-asylum-on-us-mexico-border/3044379/
