“They’re basically beta testing this app with human beings,” says a Jesuit priest...
FILE - Ecuadorian immigrant Neptali Chiluisa shows an app that he uses for reporting his location to immigration authorities, during an interview Oct. 21, 2021, in New York. U.S. immigration authorities are turning to smartphones and apps to keep tabs on immigrants seeking asylum or being deported. WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is now directing thousands of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.
“They’re basically beta testing this app with human beings,” said Brian Strassburger, a Jesuit priest in Brownsville who has been working with migrants in Reynosa. “It really does become this daily lottery system where people are all trying to get on the app at the same time,” Strassburger said. “It’s not like, ‘If I'm persistent it will work.’ You could try 20 days in a row, as some people have done — 30 days in a row — and still not get an appointment. A migrant could arrive a day ago and be on their first day trying, and get it.”
Under the plan, which is intended to replace Title 42 this spring, asylum seekers would be required to use the app to schedule an appointment at a port of entry and if they crossed the border without doing so, or without having already sought asylum in another country, they would face harsher penalties.
Biden’s new plan is an expansion of a scheme the administration has in place for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela that led to a 40-percent drop in border crossings in January, including a 95 percent decline in encounters with migrants from those countries crossing the border illegally.
For example, requirements that migrants must first seek asylum in another country are similar to the so-called transit ban that former President Donald Trump put in place, but was later knocked down by the courts.
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