1/18/23

By Josh Rubin

The immigration apparatus of the United States has introduced a smart phone app called CBPOne. It allows the owner of a charged iPhone to register and schedule an appointment with someone at one of a few Ports of Entry along the southern border with Mexico. It collects information about the applicant, like what the basis is for the applicant’s claim of eligibility for entry, typically making a request for asylum, along with information attesting immediate personal vulnerability.

This does not eliminate the hurdles that are placed in the way of people who are traveling to that border from homes that are no longer tenable to find their way to a new home. They are homeless in a world that does not respond well to homelessness. And the disruptions of climate and political upheaval have put into motion many who elect to take to the road in order to survive.

The response in our country, and other countries along the way, has been to make things as difficult as possible for people in the grips of this world crisis. Mistreated, driven through dangers and places sometimes even past the brink of death—these are the disincentives meant to carry the message, Don’t Come. Neither do the legal systems of countries along the way and our own shy away from tying ourselves into knots to erect the bureaucratic tangle that snares migrants like the razor wire coiled along much of the 2,200 miles of our southern border. Secret deals with client governments involving such pretenses as contagion—I speak of Title 42—are contrived. Rapid expulsions aim at creating despair and have the added benefit of making the “problem” less visible, hidden in the dangerous streets of Mexico’s border cities, behind walls built to stop migrants, but that also keep them out of sight.

Which brings us to CBPOne. Forbidden to use this virtual portal except in certain invisible places, it discourages even waiting patiently at our doorstep. Their names are banished to this app which coldly records their desperation and puts them on a line to wait invisibly for the chance for the few appointments to plead their cases.

Remember MPP? Remain in Mexico? This does it one better. It holds people at a distance, in danger and desperation, keeping them unseen until their anxious fingers hit the keys fast enough to squeeze into one of the far-too-few appointments that Customs and Border Protection allows.

See how much more efficient it is? It reminds me of another country in recent history that found new and efficient ways to handle the problem of unwanted people.