Under the rule, migrants are required to make an appointment, using the Biden administration’s CBP One smartphone app, to be screened at an official port of entry. People caught entering the country illegally — even those with an asylum claim — face swift deportation and a five-year bar to reentry, unless they can show they were turned down for asylum in another country on the way here, or unless they face an acute medical emergency or an imminent threat to their safety.
To further reduce the number of people waiting at the border, the government is granting up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela a two-year humanitarian parole — similar to programs for Ukrainians and Afghans.
It’s too soon to tell whether these policies will reduce illegal border crossings. In June, the first month after the border rule took effect, the number of people encountered by the Border Patrol dropped dramatically — by more than 40% — to just below 100,000 arrests. But preliminary numbers for July, first reported in The Washington Post, were ticking back up again, though they are still lower than in recent months.
First stop: shelter in San Diego
Many migrants in Tijuana and other border cities report frustrating challenges with the government’s app and months of failed attempts to get an appointment — and some still try to cross illegally. But nationally, nearly 1,500 people a day are getting access to the U.S.-Mexico border using the app, officials say.
Those who cross into San Diego — roughly 250 a day, advocates say — are met by representatives from the San Diego Rapid Response Network and taken to the network’s shelter, operated by Jewish Family Service of San Diego. There they can rest for a couple of days and get a health screening, legal orientation and help with travel arrangements to their destinations.
After three years in which Title 42 gave asylum seekers no way to cross the border legally, the new system is safe, humane and orderly, said Kate Clark, who runs the immigration program at Jewish Family Service.