Trump strips legal status for thousands of immigrants who entered U.S. legally with Biden-era app

Donald Trump’蝉 administration is telling tens of thousands of immigrants to leave “immediately” after they used a government smartphone app to enter the United States legally.

The administration has terminated temporary legal statuses for immigrants who entered the country through the Joe Biden-era CBP One app, which was used by roughly 985,000 people seeking legal entry into the country before the president abruptly ended the program after taking office.

Department of Homeland Security officials did not tell The Independent how many notices have been sent when pressed for comment. Immigrants who received the message could face arrest, severe fines and forced removal from the country if they do not leave on their own, according to DHS. They will not be allowed to return.

“It is time for you to leave the United States,” a message to CBP One applicants reads. “Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States — the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “has full authority to revoke parole,” a senior DHS spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent. “Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security.”

“Formal termination notices have been issued, and affected aliens are urged to voluntarily self-deport using the CBP Home App,” the spokesperson added. “Those who refuse will be found, removed, and permanently barred from reentry."

The order does not apply to immigrants who entered the country through the Uniting for Ukraine and Operation Allies Welcome programs. Last week, the administration apologized for mistakenly sending similar notices to some Ukrainian refugees living in the country through the Uniting for Ukraine program, which has helped resettle more than 240,000 people displaced by Russia’蝉 war.

It’蝉 unclear how many Ukrainians received the message.

It’蝉 also unclear how many notices were sent, and whether people who received them are eligible for removal, according to Erika Pinheiro, executive director of Al Otro Lado, which provides legal and humanitarian support to refugees, deportees, and other migrants in the United States and Tijuana, Mexico.

“As long as they have a pending court proceeding or a pending asylum application, they do have a protection against removal,” she told The Independent. “Generally, they would not be legally able to be removed until an immigration judge issues an order. However, we've seen multiple cases recently of the Trump administration deporting individuals with pending asylum cases or pending proceedings, so we can't rely on the administration to follow the law, but at least technically and legally,

After entering office, Trump ended the Biden-era smartphone app, which has allowed tens of thousands of people seeking asylum and legal entry into the United States to schedule appointments with immigration authorities at the southern border since it was introduced in January 2023.

Roughly 270,000 people on the other side of the border were trying to get an appointment through the app when the app was abruptly shut down.

The app has since been renamed CBP Home, which encourages immigrants to enter their “intent to depart” the country.

CBP One was effectively the only way that people living outside the country could request an appointment at an official port of entry to begin their asylum claims and immigration paperwork, but was falsely characterized by Trump and his allies as a fast track for illegal immigration.

On January 20, hours after Trump entered office, a notice on the app’蝉 website said that the app was “no longer available” and all appointments were “canceled” without notice.

At ports of entry across the southern border, where hundreds of people were lined up for their appointments, they all received the same message: “Existing appointments through CPB One are no longer valid.”

Another woman and her two minor children, who have been embroiled in a long-running lawsuit over constraints on asylum claims, were scheduled for their appointment on January 25, just five days before the app was shut down.

The app had previously processed up to 1,450 people seeking asylum each day.

But “as a result of the appointment process’蝉 elimination, the right to seek asylum at the border no longer exists, no matter how great the danger faced by migrants, including families with children,” civil rights attorneys wrote in a court filing in January.

“People are really scared,” Pinheiro told The Independent. “People are scared to show up to check ins, and rightfully so, to show up to immigration court for fear that they’ll be detained. … They see the news reports of immigrants basically being kidnapped off of the streets and disappeared to Guantanamo or El Salvador. They’re understandably very frightened. They’ve been in the United States for a little while, have a job, established themselves and are supporting themselves, and to have the rug ripped out from under them is really jarring and obviously very frightening for them.”

Trump’蝉 anti-immigration agenda has moved to dismantle legal immigration under the Biden administration, including cutting off legal protections and work permissions for tens of thousands of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who were granted temporary protected status.

Nearly 350,000 Venezuelans who entered the country under humanitarian protections during the Biden administration were set to lose their legal status on April 7, but a federal judge blocked an order that threatens to “inflict irreparable harm on hundreds of thousands of persons whose lives, families, and livelihoods will be severely disrupted, cost the United States billions in economic activity, and injure public health and safety in communities throughout the United States,” according to District Judge Edward Chen in California.

The move to cancel those protections appears “predicated on negative stereotypes casting class-wide aspersions on their character,” including “insinuating they were released from Venezuelan prisons and mental health facilities and imposed huge financial burdens on local communities,” the judge wrote last month.

“Generalization of criminality to the Venezuelan TPS population as a whole is baseless and smacks of racism predicated on generalized false stereotypes,” Chen wrote. “Moreover, Venezuelan TPS holders are critical contributors to both the national and local economies: they work, spend money, and pay taxes.”