The app that has been “a salvation” for legal entry of migrants to the US could disappear

The CBP One application has helped bring order to the border and is seen as a useful tool to help reduce illegal crossings into the US, although it could disappear in the new term of President Donald Trump.

A nurse who fled Cuba in the largest exodus from the Caribbean nation in more than six decades needed a place to stay in Mexico while she waited to enter the United States legally using a government application. A woman who had lived her entire life in the same Tijuana neighborhood desperately needed medical help after a dog attack caused injuries to her legs.

An acquaintance of both of them brought them together. Nurse Karla Figueredo stayed with Martha Rosales for three days in October 2023, waiting for the border appointment booked through the CBP One app and treating her bites. When Figueredo left for the United States, Rosales gave him permission to give his name to other migrants.

Word spread quickly and Rosales included his home on a list of at least three dozen migrant lodgings in his hometown on the U.S.-Mexico border, where he temporarily houses users of the CBP One app.

Rosales, 45, had been attacked by five dogs and, until Figueredo treated her, used a wheelchair. He said that he asked God that, if his feet were not amputated, he would help every Cuban he could.

CBP One has facilitated the entry of nearly a million people into the United States with two-year permits that give the option to work in the country, but it could disappear once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Figueredo, 25, now works as a medical assistant in the Houston area and maintains contact with Rosales, who left her job as a cleaner at a bank to focus on her migrant shelter. The people she hosts, mostly Cubans, call her “Aunt Martha” as she prepares pancake breakfasts, hosts birthday parties, and drives them to their CBP One appointments.

Proponents of the CBP One app maintain that it has helped bring order to the border and reduced illegal crossings. But Trump has said he will abolish it as part of a broader anti-immigration campaign. Critics point out that it prioritizes a lottery system over people who have been living in the country without permits for years while paying taxes and over those who have been waiting for years for a visa.

Dayron García, a doctor from Cuba who heard about Rosales from a nephew, applied with his wife and children and plans to settle with a friend in Houston. He noted that the Rosales house “feels like family” and that “CBP One has been a salvation.”

“It's a guarantee,” said García, 40 years old. “You enter with papers, with provisional freedom.”

CBP One launched with Trump and changed with Biden

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launched CBP One near the end of Trump's first term as a way for customs agents to schedule inspections and for visitors with visas to short stay they could extend them.

The Biden administration extended its use to migrants to replace an opaque patchwork of exemptions to a pandemic-related asylum ban that was in place.

CBP One is popular among Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Mexicans, probably because activists in their communities promote it.

Illegal border crossings by Cubans plummeted under CBP One from a peak of nearly 35,000 in April 2022 to just 97 in September.

Demand for appointments has far outstripped supply, with an average of about 280,000 people competing for 1,450 spots a day toward the end of last year, according to CBP. Winners must report to a border crossing within three weeks.

a night bird

Now, migrant shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border are primarily occupied by those requesting appointments online.

Rosales' house is in a neighborhood with ramshackle houses where old tires are piled up to stop flash floods. The migrants watch television, play billiards, do homework and take care of their children in the home or in another rented one nearby. Those without an appointment still use their cell phones to search for the spaces that are opened daily at eight border crossings, a task comparable to trying to buy tickets for a Taylor Swift concert.

Rosales works all night. An assistant takes her to the airport in the vehicle she bought with retirement pay from her job at the bank.

Shortly after midnight, he transfers guests from his home to Tijuana's main border crossing with San Diego for the first appointments of the day, at 5 a.m. Chat with them, smile for photos and hug them goodbye.

At three in the morning he is already at a television station to do a four-hour shift cleaning the newsroom and serving coffee to the journalists, who give him the latest information about immigration and the city.

Check your cell phone looking for migrants who need shelter and who have found out about their existence on social networks or from friends and family. In your contact list you identify them by group size and appointment date: “3 on the 16th” or “6 on the 17th.”

Rosales, one of 13 siblings, left school in third grade. Reading the Bible taught him enough to barely understand text messages, which he usually responds to with voice notes or calls.

Enrique Lucero was responsible for immigration affairs in Tijuana when Rosales went to city hall seeking advice. He helped her establish a legal entity to raise funds and made herself available for emergencies, such as when a woman missed her CBP One appointment due to giving birth. Lucero spoke with the agency to make sure the woman and her baby passed.

The exodus from Cuba

Border detentions of Cubans increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and after anti-government protests in 2021. Nicaragua had just eased rules for flights from Havana, allowing them to avoid having to cross the Darien Gap on foot, a dangerous jungle in Colombia and Panama. In the spring of 2022, Cubans surpassed all nationalities—except Mexicans—in illegal crossings.

For Yoandis Delgado, the app was a gift from God. He flew to Nicaragua in 2023, paid $1,000 to a smuggler to reach southern Mexico, and was repeatedly robbed by Mexican authorities while trying to reach the northern border.

Delgado, who was a cook in Cuba, said Rosales' house and neighborhood do not attract the attention of those who want to take advantage of migrants, offering a sense of security that hotels or other shelters do not provide.

A bleak future for CBP One

Biden administration officials are presenting CBP One as a key success in their strategy to create legal border pathways and deter illegal crossings. They point out that people at risk can go to a border crossing without an appointment to present their case.

Anxiety is growing among migrants in Mexico, who fear that Trump will cancel CBP One. Those already in the United States are also concerned because the permit expires in two years.

Trump's transition team did not respond to questions about the future of the app, but his allies say it is too generous and encourages immigration. A bill that stalled in the Senate in 2023 would have banned using the app to admit migrants.

Figueredo, the nurse who helped Rosales, plans to obtain a permanent residence permit, known as a “green card,” under a 1966 law that applies to Cubans. She says that she and her partner, who is a barber, emigrated to the country to continue growing professionally and raise their children in the future.