(NewsNation) — Migrants wishing to self-deport themselves can use a reimagined mobile app that alerts government officials of immigrants’ intent to leave the country rather than face what federal officials call “harsher consequences.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection unveiled the CBP Home app, which includes an “Intent to Depart” feature that has not previously been available to migrants who entered the United States illegally. The app was introduced Monday, less than two months after several functions on the CBP One app were disabled on January 20, when President Donald Trump was sworn into office.
The CBP One app previously allowed migrants to schedule court appointments and asylum hearings before they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and allowed migrants to be vetted by immigration officials before reaching the border.
However, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Monday that the Biden administration “exploited” the CBP One app, which allowed more than 1 million immigrants to enter the country illegally. She said by launching the CBP Home app, “we are restoring integrity to our immigration system.”
More than 900,000 migrants used the CBP One app to obtain immigration parole upon entering the country. That parole was typically good for two years. However, standing appointments made through the CBP One app were canceled once the app’s scheduling function was disabled after Trump took office.
Noem said that the CBP Home app gives migrants the “option” to leave the country and self-deport. By doing so, Noem wrote that migrants could return to the United States legally in the future and live the American dream.
“If they don’t (self-deport), we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return,” Noem said.
The CBP Home app offers migrants an “orderly and defined” voluntary process to alert immigration officials that they intend to leave the country, CBP officials said. After NewsNation sent questions about how the process for migrants using the CBP Home app would work, however, a spokesperson said that all information that is being made available by the agency was included in the news release.
Migrants who have the CBP One app downloaded on their phone will be directed to the CBP Home app, which has both Apple and Android applications.
The release of the CBP Home app comes just weeks after Trump signed an executive order requiring migrants to be fingerprinted for a new registry for migrants who entered the country illegally.
The executive order mandates that within 30 days of entering the country, migrants must register with the federal government. Those who register can avoid criminal charges and fines and will receive assistance relocating to their home country, Noem said in an interview with Fox News.
John Fabbricatore, the former director of the ICE field office in Denver, told NewsNation that he believes that unveiling a tool that would assist migrants in leaving the country had been on the Trump administration’s radar.
But after the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing last week about how technology can assist ICE and other federal immigration officials with immigration enforcement, the release of the CBP Home app was pushed forward, Fabbricatore said.
“If we can use the app to enter (the country), we can use that app to exit,” Fabbricatore told the GOP-led committee.
Fabbricatore told NewsNation on Monday that while many will use the new app to self-deport with hopes of returning to the U.S. illegally, many will choose not to comply. In addition to the safeguards that CBP officials say the revised mobile app provides, Fabbricatore said the mobile app offers other benefits to migrants who choose to use the app to announce their intentions.
“This is a tool to keep families together, allow people who want to come back to leave on their own and cuts significant costs from the deportation detention process,” he said.