U.S. online asylum search system quickly overwhelmed

Hours before sunrise, migrants at one of Mexico’s largest shelters wake up and go online in hopes of making an appointment to try and get asylum in the US. 100 people slide their thumbs across their phone screens.

New appointments are available every day at 6am, but migrants are stymied by error messages on the US government’s CBPOne mobile app, which has been overwhelmed since the Biden administration introduced the system on Jan. 12.

Many cannot log in; others can enter their information and select a date, but the screen freezes at the final confirmation. Some get the message that they should be near the US border crossing despite being in Mexico’s largest border town.

At Embajadores de Jesus in Tijuana, only two of more than 1,000 migrants were assigned during the first two weeks, director Gustavo Banda says.

“We’re going to keep trying, but it’s a failure for us,” said Erlin Rodriguez from Honduras after another unsuccessful attempt to make an appointment with him, his wife and their two children one Sunday before dawn. “There is no hope.”

Marenie Montiel from Mexico was delighted to have chosen a date and time for her two children but did not receive a verification code. “Now I’m back to zero,” said Montiel, 32, who waited four months at a shelter where cock crows fill the fresh morning air at the end of a rough dirt road.

CBPOne has replaced the opaque patchwork of exceptions with a public health ordinance known as Section 42, under which the US government has denied migrants the right to seek asylum since March 2020. People who come from other countries end up in Mexico waiting for release or politics. edit – unless they try to cross illegally into the US

If it succeeds, CBPOne could be used by asylum seekers even if Section 42 is repealed as a safe, orderly alternative to illegal entry, which reached the highest level ever recorded in the US in December. It may also discourage the establishment of large camps on the Mexican side of the border, where migrants harbor unfulfilled hopes.

But there were a number of complaints:

– Applications are only available in English and Spanish, which many migrants do not speak. Gerlin Josef, chief executive of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said the authorities failed to take into account “the simplest fact: the national language of Haiti is Haitian Creole.” US Customs and Border Protection said it plans to release a Creole version in February, with no other languages ​​announced yet.

Some migrants, especially those with darker skin, say the app is rejecting requested photos, blocking or delaying applications. CBP says it’s aware of some technical issues, especially as new appointments become available, but users’ phones can also contribute. It states that a Live Photo is required for every login as a security measure.

The problem has hit Haitians hardest, said Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, director of the Sidewalk School, which helps migrants in Reynos and Matamoros, across Texas’s Rio Grande Valley. Previously, about 80% of the migrants admitted to seek asylum in the area were Haitians, according to Rangel-Samponaro. On Friday, she counted 10 blacks among the 270 admitted to Matamoros.

“We brought building lights pointed in your face,” she said. “These photos still couldn’t get through. … They can’t get past the picture.”

“The claim that migrants make in northern and central Mexico doesn’t always work. CBP notes that the app will not work properly if the locator feature is disabled. It is also trying to determine if the signals are bouncing off phone towers in the US.

Not only is the app unable to recognize that some people are at the border, but applicants outside the region have been able to bypass the location requirement using VPNs. The agency said it has found a solution to this problem and is updating the system.

Some advocates are frustrated by the lack of clear focus on LGBTQ candidates. Migrants are asked if they have a physical or mental illness, disability, pregnancy, homelessness, risk of harm, age under 21 or over 70 years of age.

However, LGBTQ migrants are not disqualified. At Casa de Luz, a Tijuana shelter for about 50 LGBT migrants, four were quickly assigned. A transgender woman from El Salvador said she did not check any boxes when asked about specific vulnerabilities.

The US began blocking asylum seekers under President Donald Trump on the basis of preventing the spread of COVID-19, although Section 42 does not apply uniformly and many people deemed vulnerable are exempt from it.

From President Joe Biden’s first year in office until last week, the CBP orchestrated exemptions through lawyers, churches, attorneys and migrant shelters without naming them publicly or revealing how many seats were available. This arrangement prompted accusations of favoritism and corruption. In December, CBP cut ties with one group that blamed the Russians.

For CBPOne to work, enough people must make an appointment to discourage illegal border crossings, said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney and former assistant to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat.

“If these meetings start to drag on for two, three or four months, it will be much more difficult to continue them,” he said. “If people don’t get through, they won’t use the program.”

CBP, which makes appointments two weeks in advance, declines to say how many people are arriving. But Enrique Lucero, director of migrant affairs in the city of Tijuana, said US authorities are taking in 200 people a day at San Diego, the largest border crossing. . This is about the same as the previous system, but significantly less than the number of Ukrainians processed after the Russian invasion last year.

Josue Miranda, 30, has been living in Embajadores de Jesus for five months and prefers the old system of working through advocacy groups. The orphanage put together an internal waiting list that moved slowly but let him know where he was. Banda, the director of the shelter, said 100 people are selected every week.

Miranda packed his bags for him, his wife and three children, believing his turn was imminent until a new online portal was introduced. Now the Salvadoran migrant has no idea when his chance will present itself and whether he will present himself. However, he plans to keep trying through CBPOne.

“The problem is that the system is oversaturated and chaos reigns,” he said after another morning of failed attempts.