Biden’s high-tech border wall unworthy of a country where migrants hope to find shelter
It may not be made of concrete-filled steel, but it sends the same message: The Biden administration has built a technological wall at the Southern border. Only those who can navigate a glitchy appointment lottery on a smartphone app can now present themselves at ports of entry to seek safety.
It’s in full breach of statutory and international law. This leaves the most vulnerable migrants stuck, waiting in horrific conditions for a day that may literally never come. If Biden’s asylum ban is put into effect, this might be the most hope they ever have.
In January 2023, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) began requiring asylum seekers to apply for an appointment via the CBP One app before they reach a port of entry. In doing so, the agency stopped allowing pro bono attorneys, like the thousands who volunteer with Lawyers for Good Government’s Project Corazon, to advocate directly on migrants’ behalf for humanitarian exemptions to the process.
Now, asylum seekers are left to fend for themselves, navigating an app whose terms and conditions and error messages are only in English, and which runs out of appointments in minutes.
CBP One is notoriously unreliable; conditions on the ground add additional hurdles. Our clients live in tents without plumbing, yards from an open pit of human waste. They don’t have access to reliable electricity or internet. Some are penniless, left selling candy on the streets to afford smartphones so they can access the app in the first place.
Absurdly, CBP One also means that the validity of your asylum claim does not matter. All that matters is whether you have a smartphone, data plan and the technological savvy to navigate securing an appointment.
Border authorities have no way to prioritize vulnerable migrants who otherwise would have a strong case of earning the protection of U.S. asylum laws. Instead, these meritorious asylum seekers are stuck living in danger and might not secure an appointment before facing a medical crisis, torture, sexual violence, kidnapping or murder. For example, our client was kidnapped and tortured for two days in January, yet CBP repeatedly told our attorneys: He needs to use the app. He’s spent weeks waking up early to try every single morning for an appointment, and as of this writing, still hasn’t secured one.
Yet, the Biden administration is proposing that all asylum seekers figure out how to use this app or be presumed ineligible for relief, having to provide evidence to overcome that presumption.
It would be up to border agents to decide whether an asylum seeker has met this legal standard, which will only create chaos at the border, in which the most vulnerable will suffer.
It’s not too late for the Biden administration to live up to its campaign promises to “uphold [the] legal right to seek asylum” and stop harming our international reputation in this arena. It should stop treating the right to asylum like a lottery by opening up alternative pathways to the app and allowing lawyers to advocate on behalf of particularly vulnerable asylum seekers directly at ports of entry.
And, as 35 House members told the administration Monday, in a letter our organization endorsed, the administration must immediately make changes to CBP One to bolster its usability and equitable access, such as increasing the app’s available languages.
Citizens can help, too. They can reaffirm their commitment to protecting those who cannot protect themselves. They can submit comments against the asylum rule. And, they can defend human rights by volunteering with or supporting organizations working at the border.
Together, we can overcome the shame of Biden’s technological border wall and create lawful paths to safety and dignity. Asylum seekers believe we’re a country that protects people who are fleeing persecution. It’s time to be that country.