Trump rebrands immigration app once used by asylum seekers as "self-deportation" tool. And it's worrying Florida immigrants
CBP Home is a phone app previously used for people seeking asylum in the U.S. It has now been revived by the Trump Administration with a different purpose than when it was created as CBP One.
"CBP Home is now a tool that the Trump Administration wants migrants to use to self deport," Juan Carlos Rivera, a South Florida immigration attorney, told CBS News Miami. "It went from allowing immigrants to come in to having immigrants go out."
With the new app, immigrants should state their intent to leave the U.S. by uploading their photo and where they should be going.
CBP Home is now part of a $200 million domestic and international ad campaign for people without legal status to leave the country on their own instead of staying.
"CBP One [the previous app shut down by President Trump in January] helped almost a million people," Rivera said. "It created an order for people to have their interview scheduled with an [immigration] officer [at a point of entry, mainly the border]."
CBP One app was created by the Biden administration in May 2023 to filter migrants attempting to enter the U.S. at the southern border.
"I entered through Texas using the app, the officer interviewed us and granted us entry into the U.S.," said Maria, who resides in Florida and is waiting for her day in court after filing for political asylum.
Rivera said the federal government has access to the data provided by people like Maria, who entered the U.S. using CBP One.
"We don't know right now if they're going to use it against immigrants to find them and deport them," he said.
Maria said she's worried about that, yet she does not intend to self deport herself or anybody in her family.
Rivera said there are very few exceptions of people choosing to return to their homeland.
"If they have a court hearing and something happens in their home country, their spouse or their mother is getting sick and they just leave," he said.
As far as doing it because of fear of the Trump Administration campaign to urge people to go back, "I haven't heard any client self-deporting," Rivera said
