US hopes for border order via mobile app, causing decrease in crossings.

Desperate Migrants Struggle to Navigate New Legal Pathways to Enter the US

CBPOne App Frustrates Asylum-Seekers

Asylum-seekers on Mexico’s border with the US are struggling to navigate new legal pathways to enter the country. Pandemic-era limits on asylum, known as Title 42, have been largely ignored as migrants focus on a new US government mobile app called CBPOne. The app grants 1,000 people daily an appointment to cross the border and seek asylum while living in the US. However, with demand far outstripping available slots, the app has been an exercise in frustration for many.

Teresa Muñoz, 48, who fled her home in the Mexican state of Michoacan after a gang killed her husband and beat her, has been trying for a month to gain entry through the app. She is staying in a Tijuana shelter with her two children and 2-year-old grandson. “You start to give up hope but it’s the only way,” she said.

Authorities Struggle to Manage Influx of Migrants

US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Border Patrol made 6,300 arrests on Friday, the first day after Title 42 expired, and 4,200 on Saturday. That’s sharply below the 10,000-plus on three days last week as migrants rushed to get in before new policies to restrict asylum took effect. Despite the drop in recent days, authorities predict arrests will spike to between 12,000 and 14,000 a day.

More than 27,000 migrants were in custody along the border one day last week, a number that may top 45,000 by the end of May if authorities can’t release migrants without orders to appear in immigration court. The administration plans to ask an appeals court Monday for permission to release migrants without orders to appear in court.

New Legal Pathways to Deter Illegal Crossings

The administration is touting new legal pathways in an effort to deter illegal crossings, including parole for 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans a month who apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at an airport.

However, hundreds of predominantly Colombian migrants waited to be processed Saturday in searing heat near Jacumba, California, having slept for days in thatched tents east of San Diego and getting by on the Border Patrol’s limited supply of cookies and water. Several said they crossed illegally after trying the app without success or hearing tales of frustration from others.

CBPOne App Increases Slots and Prioritizes Longest-Trying Asylum-Seekers

Last week, the administration increased the number of slots on the CBPOne app to 1,000 from 740, began granting priority to those who try longest, and released slots gradually throughout the day instead of all at once, which had created mad rushes. However, many asylum-seekers remain unconvinced.

For Muñoz, who is haunted by walking through the Arizona desert in the mid-2000s on a grueling one-week trek, the CBPOne app is her only hope. She looked into being smuggled through the mountains east of San Diego but determined it would cost too much. After saving money working double shifts at a supermarket near Los Angeles, she returned to Mexico to raise her children.

The Biden administration’s strategy of coupling new legal paths to entry with severe consequences for those who don’t is being put to the test as authorities struggle to manage the influx of migrants.