Trump’s DHS pick vows to end controversial app used by migrants on ‘day one’

Kristi NoemPresident-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security told lawmakers she will end the controversial CBP One application and a related migrant parole program that has allowed entry of nearly 1.5 million of immigrants to the US.

“Yes, senator, if he is confirmed and I have the opportunity to be secretary, on the first day, CBP One will be closed,” Noem told Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., at his confirmation hearing before the Senate National Security Committee.

Hawley first asked Noem if the southern border was secure.

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“Senator, no, the southern border is not secure today. But in three days, we will have a new president in this country, President Donald J. Trump. And he will secure our border,” he said.

He was then asked about the use of the CBP One applicationwhich allows immigrants to be conditioned in the U.S. The application was created during the first Trump administration to help schedule cargo inspections. However, it was controversially expanded in 2023 to allow migrants to make an appointment at a port of entry in order to enter, initially due to a Title 42 public health order exception and then, from of May, to be paroled in the US as part of the Biden administration’s expansion of “legal pathways.”

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By the end of December, more than 936,500 people had made parole appointments through the app, according to Customs and Border Protection.

Connecting to it was a parole process Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV)which allows up to 30,000 nationals per month from these countries to receive travel authorization to enter the US after a vetting process. By the end of December, some 531,000 nationals had been authorized through the program. It was first applied to Venezuelans in October 2022 and expanded to the other three nationalities in January 2023.

Although the Biden administration said it was part of an effort to encourage legal, rather than illegal, immigration and that it had been part of a slowdown in the illegal entry of nationals these groups, opponents condemned it as a “concierge service” for an illegal mass. migration

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Noem said he would terminate CBP One on his first day in office, although the agency will retain some information.

“There’s data and information there that we’re going to keep to make sure we know who’s coming into this country and who’s already here, that we need to go find,” he clarified.

CHNV then pointed out, “where our federal government actually paid to bring people into this country directly from other countries without any investigation or knowing who they are.”

“So there are several of these programs that need to be eliminated, and we need to make sure that we’re following legal immigration laws,” he said.

Hawley followed up, asking if he would end “abuses” in the parole system.

“We will return to the case-by-case evaluation of these parole cases and ensure that we have more resources, if you work with us, to ensure that our legal immigration system is fully utilized, that let’s have more judges, more immigration courts, so we can prosecute people legally and make sure they’re going through that process instead of, as Joe Biden has done, using that as an excuse to allow people enter our country without consequence,” he said. he said

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Noem, if confirmed, will oversee DHS at a time when the agency is expected to launch a historic mass deportation operation targeting illegal immigrants in the US, while also trying to expand border security on the southern and northern borders .

She will work with “Border Czar” Tom Homanwho was chosen by Trump in November to lead the operation and border security efforts.