Many cannot log in; others can fill in their information and choose a date, only to have the screen freeze on final confirmation.
Hours before sunrise, migrants wake up in one of Mexico’s largest shelters and go online hoping to get an appointment to apply for asylum in the US 100 people slide their thumbs over phone screens.
New appointments are available every day at 6am, but migrants are hampered by error messages from the US government’s CBPOne mobile app, which has been overloaded since the Biden administration launched Jan. 12.
Many cannot log in; others can fill in their information and choose a date, only to have the screen freeze on final confirmation. Some receive a message that they must be near a US border crossing, even though they are in Mexico’s largest border city.
At Embajadores de Jesus in Tijuana, only two of more than 1,000 migrants got an appointment in the first two weeks, says director Gustavo Banda.
“We’ll keep trying, but it’s a failure for us,” Honduras’ Erlin Rodriguez said after another unsuccessful run to an appointment for him, his wife and their two children on a pre-dawn Sunday. “There is no hope.”
Mexico’s Mareni Montiel was thrilled to pick a date and time for her two children – and was then given no confirmation code. “Now I’m back to square one,” said Montiel, 32, who has been waiting four months at the shelter, where the sound of roosters fills the crisp morning air at the end of a bumpy dirt road.
CBPOne replaced an opaque patchwork of exceptions to a health regulation known as Title 42, under which the US government has denied migrants the right to seek asylum since March 2020. People who have arrived from other countries find themselves in Mexico awaiting an exception or policy change — unless they attempt to enter the US illegally
If successful, CBPOne could be used by asylum-seekers even when Title 42 is lifted, as a safe, orderly alternative to illegal entry, which reached its highest level on record in the US in December. It could also discourage large camps on the Mexican side of the border, where migrants cling to unrealistic hopes.
But a number of complaints have surfaced:
— Applications are only available in English and Spanish, languages that many migrants do not speak. Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said authorities had “failed to take into account the most basic fact: the national language of Haiti is Haitian Creole”. US Customs and Border Protection plans a Creole version in February; it has not announced any other languages.
— Some migrants, particularly those with darker skin, say the app rejects required photos, blocks or delays applications. CBP says it’s aware of some technical issues, especially when new dates are made available, but that users’ phones can also contribute. As a security measure, a live photo is required for each login.
The problem has hit Haitians hardest, said Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, director of Sidewalk School, which supports migrants in Reynosa and Matamoros across Texas’ Rio Grande Valley. Previously, about 80% of migrants seeking asylum in the region had been Haitians, Rangel-Samponaro said. On Friday, she counted 10 blacks out of 270 admitted to Matamoros.
“We brought construction lights aimed at your face,” she said. “Those pictures still couldn’t go through. …You can’t get past the pictorial part.”
— A requirement that migrants in northern and central Mexico must apply for does not always work. CBP advises that the app will not function properly if the location feature is turned off. It also tries to determine if signals are bouncing off US phone towers.
Not only does the app fail to recognize that some people are at the border, applicants outside of the region have also been able to bypass the location requirement by using virtual private networks. The agency said it found a fix and is updating the system.
— Some advocates are disappointed that there is no explicit special consideration for LGBTQ applicants. Migrants are asked whether they have a physical or mental illness, disability, pregnancy, lack of housing, impending damage, are under 21 or over 70 years old.
However, LGBTQ migrants are not disqualified. At the Casa de Luz, a shelter in Tijuana for about 50 LGBTQ migrants, four quickly got an appointment. A transgender woman from El Salvador said she did not tick any boxes when asked about specific vulnerabilities.
The US, under President Donald Trump, began blocking asylum seekers to prevent the spread of COVID-19, although Title 42 is not applied consistently and many people considered vulnerable are exempt.
Beginning in President Joe Biden’s first year in office until last week, CBP arranged exemptions through attorneys, churches, attorneys and migrant shelters without publicly naming them or saying how many seats were available. The agreement led to allegations of favoritism and corruption. In December, the CBP severed ties with a group that accused Russians.
For CBPOne to work, enough people must be given appointments to discourage illegal border crossings, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and former adviser to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat.
“When those dates stretch out into two, three, four months, it becomes a lot harder to keep them going,” he said. “If people don’t get through, they won’t use the program.”
CBP, which schedules appointments up to two weeks in advance, refuses to say how many people are getting in. But Enrique Lucero, director of migrant affairs for the city of Tijuana, said US authorities accept 200 a day at San Diego, the largest border crossing. That’s about the same as the previous system, but significantly fewer than the number of Ukrainians treated after last year’s Russian invasion.
Josue Miranda, 30, has lived at Embajadores de Jesus for five months and prefers the old system of advocacy work. The shelter created an internal waiting list that was slow moving but allowed him to know where he stood. Banda, the director of the shelter, said 100 are selected each week.
Miranda packed his bags for him, his wife and their three children, believing it would be his turn until the new online portal was launched. Now the Salvadoran migrant has no idea when or if his chance will come. Still, he plans to keep trying through CBPOne.
“The problem is that the system is saturated and chaotic,” he said after another morning of failed attempts.
TheGrio is FREE on your TV across Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Roku and Android TV. so please Download theGrio mobile apps today!
The post-online system for seeking asylum in the US is quickly overwhelmed, appeared first on TheGrio.
