(Headline USA) The Trump administration Monday ended use of a border app called CBP One that has allowed nearly 1 million people to enter the United States with eligibility to work.
EXCLUSIVE: Per Trump admin official, President Trump will sign 11 border related Executive Orders today, including deployment of US troops to the border under NORTHCOM, immediate termination of Biden’s mass parole programs (CBP One cell phone app & CHNV migrant flights) & much…
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) January 20, 2025
A notice on the website of Customs and Border Protection Monday just after Trump was sworn in let users know that the app that had been used to allow migrants to schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry was no longer available. The notice said that existing appointments have been cancelled.
The move adheres to a promise Trump made during his campaign and will please critics who say it was an overly generous magnet for more people to come to Mexico’s border with the United States.
Trump reiterated the promise to restore border security as one of his top priorities during his inauguration address on Monday, to thunderous applause from those gathered at the Capitol One Arena and elsewhere to witness the historic moment.
“I will declare a national emergency at our southern border, Trump said. “All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places in which they came.”
Trump previewed a series of executive orders intended to end asylum abuse, send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, suspend the refugee program, force people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico and end birthright citizenship.
Many of the steps echoed previous ones during Trump’s first administration that faced lawsuits and other efforts designed to derail border enforcement.
The orders previewed prior to Trump’s official takeover as the 47th president were less specific about how he would fulfill his pledge of mass deportations of at least 11 million people already in the country illegally. One order will equip immigration officers with “authorities needed” to enforce the law.
Trump also intends to suspend refugee resettlement for four months, the official said. That’s a program that for decades has allowed hundreds of thousands of people from around the world fleeing war and persecution to come to the United States.
Trump similarly suspended the refugee program at the beginning of his first term, and then after reinstating it, cut the numbers of refugees admitted into the country every year.
The Trump administration also intends to designate criminal cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and specifically aims to crack down on the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and will remove those gang members from the country. The violent gang has become a menace even on American soil and exploded into the U.S. presidential campaign amid a spree of kidnappings, extortion and other crimes throughout the western hemisphere tied to a mass exodus of Venezuelan nationals.
The incoming administration also will order an end to releasing migrants in the U.S. while they await immigration court hearings, a practice known as “catch-and-release,” but officials didn’t say how they would pay for the enormous costs associated with detention.
And it would reinstate the first Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forced about 70,000 asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court. That measure would require cooperation from Mexico, and it is unclear how it jibes with pledges to end asylum altogether.
Mexico weighed in Monday morning, indicating they were prepared to receive asylum seekers that the U.S. makes wait in Mexico while emphasizing that there should be some sort of online application allowing them to schedule appointments at the U.S. border.
Trump will order the government, with Defense Department assistance, to “finish” construction of the border wall, though the official didn’t say how much territory that would cover. Barriers currently span about 450 miles, slightly more than one-third of the border. Many areas that aren’t covered are in Texas, including inhospitable terrain where illegals rarely cross.
Sending troops to the border is a strategy that Trump has used before. In 2018, Trump deployed 800 active-duty troops to assist Border Patrol personnel in processing large migrant caravans. In 2023, with the U.S. preparing to end pandemic-era restrictions on immigration, the Biden administration sent 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Both administrations also used National Guard troops along the border.
The official did not say how many troops Trump was planning to send, saying that would be up to the secretary of defense or what their role would be when they get there.
Historically, troops have been used to back up Border Patrol agents, who are responsible for securing the nearly 2,000-mile border separating the U.S. from Mexico.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
