- The Trump administration has repurposed CBP One, a Biden-era app that helped immigrants schedule court dates for asylum, into CBP Home, which now focuses on self-deportation.
- The "Intent to Depart" feature takes users' information and gives them departure tools for traveling and inspections.
- Trump's aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration has accomplished its intended purpose. Border crossings are dropping precipitously.
In 2021, President Joe Biden launched an app with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) — CBP One. CBP One mainly served as a way for migrants to schedule asylum hearings, thereby reducing illegal border crossings, per USA Today.
This week President Donald Trump repurposed the app. Rather than facilitating immigration, CBP Home, as CBP One has been rebranded, plans to facilitate “self-deportation.”
“The CBP Home app strengthens our mission to secure the border and provides illegal aliens with a straightforward way to leave now, before facing much harsher consequences later,” Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, told reporters in a press briefing on Tuesday.
The Trump administration asserts that illegal aliens abused the app during the Biden administration — claiming that 1 million people took up residency inside the United States while their asylum requests were only pending.
“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told Fox News.
“If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”
What is the ‘Intent to Depart’ feature, and how does Trump want undocumented immigrants to use it?
“The CBP Home App offers an orderly and defined process for illegal aliens (to leave the country),” Leavitt told the White House press pool.
If a CBP Home user intends to depart, they may select the “Intent to Depart” button. From there, they submit a photo of themselves to prove their identity, report whether or not they have a passport from another country and divulge if they have enough money to depart the United States, per USA Today. CBP Home also gives users the option to apply for I-94s, request cargo and luggage inspections, check border wait times and submit travel manifests for crossing the country.
The government has not yet provided information concerning when people should report their self-deportation plans. Because CBP Home tracks users' locations, immigration officials may use the app’s data to target people with plans to leave but who have not yet departed.
Nevertheless, advocates for the app say that the previous system was heavily misused, including by migrants who would ignore court hearings and rulings after submitting asylum requests.
Status of illegal immigration to the U.S.
During the press conference on Tuesday, Leavitt endorsed CBP Home and offered other data on Trump’s success in limiting illegal immigration.
A Bloomberg report published on March 10 found that the number of migrants trying to reach the United States by traveling through the jungle from Panama to America, including through the Darien Gap, plummeted by 99% last month. Numbers have fallen lower than they have since borders shut in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February, Border Patrol Chief Mike Bikes also told CBS News that illegal border crossings have dropped 94% from where they were in February 2024. He credited the dramatic reduction to Trump’s aggressive policy stances concerning unlawful immigration.
In remarks he delivered to Congress on March 4, Trump also said that he had sent Congress a detailed funding request, complete with plans to fully eliminate illegal immigration and to “complete the largest deportation operation in American history.”
“We must finish this job and continue to carry out the largest deportation campaign in American history,” Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.