2023-05-02 02:02:48
WASHINGTON — In January, the US Customs and Border Protection Office (CBP) enabled an option in the CBP One application for undocumented people in central and northern Mexico, can agree to an appointment with an immigration officer at the border.
The app allows people to submit biographical information about themselves and the family they are traveling with to then show up at a point of entry and pursue their asylum case.
From the start of the feature through March, CBP has scheduled more than 74,000 appointments to individuals. The most common nationalities are Mexican, Venezuelan and Haitian.
A CBP official responded to questions from the voice of america about the operation of the application and common errors when using it:
How long can you get an appointment?
Every day at 11am ET, new appointment slots open up to 13 days from the day they become available.
How long does it take to process applications?
The time it takes to review an application from the time a person enters the information into CBP One to possible approval “depends on each circumstance,” the official said.
“Every Title 8 case is different. It’s hard to say how long processing takes,” she added.
When asking the official if the applications received in the application are processed in order of arrival, he replied: “correct”.
Are people asked on the app if they crossed into other countries illegally?
“No, this is not an asylum application,” he explained. The official added that the process in CBP One is strictly a request to go to a Title 8 interview, the questions related to the situation in which the migrant arrived are made by the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS, for its acronym in English).
“All the interview officers ask the questions that you feel they need to get a baseline like any other interview that border crossers go through, but those types of questions have not been asked,” he said.
If you are in a family group, is it possible for some to meet and not to others?
“That is a myth. If you have her husband and her two children on her profile (for example), you will only see appointments available for the number of people on her profile. We would never say three of you can come and one of you can’t,” the official replied.
Groups registered under the same profile will only see available time slots in which everyone can be interviewed. In the example of a family of four, “if there were no appointments available for four, you would not see one available, you would have to check in the next day.”
At times, he said, families have tried to do separate profiles, however, CBP encouraged people “not to do that” as a measure to “see if it works” to get an appointment.
“We have seen duplication of profiles. If you created the profile for yourself and the people you travel with, mom, dad, kids…the system is going to work,” she said.
Dating challenges for families and taking a live photo
In the first few weeks after implementing the appointments feature, CBP identified that it “appeared to be easier for individuals to obtain individual appointments, which caused concern among groups of people traveling together, particularly family members.”
The interviewed official assured that adjustments have already been made, such as the grouping of appointment times. “For example, if you have 10 appointments at six and 10 appointments at seven, we would make 20 appointments available at six…what that allows is more appointments to open during that specific time and a group of five or six have the ability to enter that schedule, ”he explained.
Currently, about 55 percent of the people who obtain appointments through CBP One are groups.
CBP also assured that they had problems” with the application’s requirement to take live photos of each person in a family for facial recognition, especially because of the burden on the system of having “so many photos” entering the system at the same time.
“What we did was that to create an initial profile, now they just have to send a photo. We then move to live photos for security purposes when they log back in, and you have to take the live photo to schedule the appointment,” the official said.
“There is a lot of demand”
Use of the CBP One app has been in “high demand,” according to the federal agency. Because of this, “there is a capacity problem” to cover all the people who would like to get their appointment.
“This (CBP One) is essentially at least giving people the ability to schedule so they can show up (at the border),” the official said, detailing that prior to the pandemic, from 2008 to 2019, “people just they lined up and waited, and those lines were really long. Those lines that can take place in Juárez or Tijuana, people waited a long, long time.”
The official added that the application facilitates the processing of migrants by collecting biographical information in advance that previously had to be processed at crossing points. “A lot of manual processing has been removed because the data can be uploaded automatically. Instead of us getting it for the first time and having to manually enter everything,” he said.
Has the time in which people are processed has decreased?
“Absolutely, has waned a long time”, Said the official, pointing out that the drop is not only in the application time, but also in the facial comparison that was previously done manually.
How often do people cancel their appointments?
Although he assured that there is no specific data on cancellation of appointments, they have registered cases in which migrants cancel their appointment in the application. This, according to the official said, has allowed spaces to open even with less time than the average 13 days.
Is personal information protected in the application?
CBP One is a system provided by the US government, and according to CBP, “we have not had any problems” of privacy in the use of the application.
“We have implemented several features within CBP One to minimize fraudulent use of the app or potential exploitation of the migrant population,” the official said.
What languages is CBP One available in?
The app is available in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. Although there have been discussions about the possibility of expanding to other languages, “we have not needed it,” said the official.
Currently, the nationalities that mostly use the application are Venezuelans, Haitians, Russians, Mexicans and Hondurans.
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