The Trump administration has just turned one of the Biden administration’s most potent means of facilitating mass migration into a powerful tool to deport illegal aliens.
Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security has repurposed the infamous “CBP One” smartphone app as a self-deportation platform called “CBP Home.”
“DHS tells me any migrants who had the prior CBP One app will have it auto update to this new app, & DHS can use data from prior CBP One registrations to track migrants for removal,” Melugin wrote on X. “The new app allows illegal aliens and migrants in the US to register with CBP to self deport. They fill out biographical information, including their countries of citizenship, which country they plan to return to, their alien registration numbers, contact information, and it allows them to upload photos of themselves to confirm their identity.”
Of course, this scheme raises an immediate question – why would any illegal alien participate in their own deportation?
But as DHS Secretary Kristi Noem explained, illegal aliens who voluntarily leave have a chance of returning legally in the future. “If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return,” Noem said, adding that it is significantly cheaper for taxpayers if illegal aliens self-deport.
At the height of the border crisis, as many as 50,000 migrants were entering the United States every month through the CBP One app, according to CBP data. Trump terminated the program on his first day in office.
While the Biden administration claimed that the app would create an “orderly” immigration process, in reality it functioned as little more than a ticketing system for illegal immigration. Migrants were able to schedule “appointments” at ports of entry, bypassing traditional border enforcement and rewarding those attempting to enter the country illegally. This encouraged even more people to flood the border, knowing they could simply book a time to be processed and released into the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security was turned into a concierge service for illegal migrants rather than a protector of the nation’s borders.
All of this was accomplished under the “asylum process,” even for those who clearly did not qualify for asylum protections. Criminal organizations and cartels exploited the system, coaching migrants on how to game the app and claim asylum.
Worse still, CBP One gave the Biden administration cover to claim to have improved the situation at the border even as crossings surged to record highs. Since the data for illegal crossings only counts those attempting to enter between ports of entry, funneling migrants through ports of entry via CBP One lowered the “official” number of illegal entries by recategorizing would-be illegal aliens as “asylum seekers.”
But as the Trump administration quickly recognized, CBP One also gave the government a convenient database to identify migrants who do not have legitimate asylum claims. One of the most egregious violations of American sovereignty in U.S. history has now become an extremely effective instrument for restoring it.
This stroke of genius is just the latest border success for the Trump administration. Border patrol reported just 8,326 illegal crossings in February, Trump’s first full month in office. That figure is the lowest monthly total since 2000, and a 96 percent reduction from the Biden administration’s peak in 2023, when CBP reported 301,981 encounters along the southern border. The Biden administration saw multiple days where illegal crossings topped 10,000.
Secretary Noem has also reported dozens of raids where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have arrested illegal aliens wanted for violent crimes and drug trafficking. Just last week in Arlington County, Virginia, right across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, the agency conducted a raid targeting members of MS-13 and other foreign criminal gangs.
In total, according to DHS data, there were 11,791 ICE arrests throughout the United States from January 20 to February 8, compared to 4,969 during the same period in 2024, a 137 percent increase.
“The invasion of our country is OVER,” Trump declared in a Truth Social post, pointing to his early border security actions like reinstating “Remain in Mexico,” declaring a national border emergency, and ending Biden’s catch and release policy. “Anyone who tries to illegally enter the U.S.A. will face significant criminal penalties and immediate deportation.”
Democrats and the media have been conspicuously silent on the stunning speed with which Trump has secured the border after claiming for four years that Biden was powerless to stop the flood of illegal crossings without action from Congress. But as the Trump administration has shown once again through its reimagining of the CBP One app, all that was needed was a little ingenuity and a legitimate desire to secure the nation’s borders.
Shane Harris is the Editor in Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
