DHS releases new mobile app pushing migrants to self-deport
A migrant shows the CBP One App from the US Customs and Border Protection agency, to use to apply for an appointment to claim asylum, on a phone in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on May 10, 2023. The Trump administration announced March 10, 2025 that it had repurposed the app to now allow migrants to report their plans to "self-deport." GILLES CLARENNE/AFP via Getty Images
The Trump administration’s new Customs and Border Protection app replaces a version that allowed migrants to schedule asylum appointments at U.S. ports of entry.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it has repurposed a Biden-era mobile application that tracked migrant entrants to the United States to include a “self-deport reporting feature.”
Customs and Border Protection’s new app, called CBP Home, replaces the CBP One tool that allowed migrants to schedule asylum appointments at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Other functions of the app — which were included in both versions — allow individuals to view border crossing wait times, schedule cargo inspections and access arrival and departure records.
Republican lawmakers and others criticized the Biden administration’s CBP One app for allowing migrants to enter the U.S. before their asylum claims were heard. Some Democrats similarly criticized the previous app over accessibility concerns and the tool’s use of facial recognition and geolocation.
In a release publicizing the launch of the retooled app, DHS said migrants “should use the CBP Home mobile phone application to submit their intent to depart.” The department added that all previously downloaded versions of the CBP One app will update to the CBP Home tool.
The rebranded release of CBP’s app comes as the Trump administration has increasingly pushed migrants illegally in the U.S. to leave the country on their own volition rather than face the threat of deportation. DHS said the CBP Home app’s self-deport feature is “part of a larger $200 million domestic and international ad campaign encouraging illegal aliens to ‘Stay Out and Leave Now.’”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement that the CBP Home app “gives aliens the option to leave now and self-deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream.”
During her January confirmation hearing, Noem voiced support for ending the CBP One app as soon as possible, although she added “there’s data and information in there that we will preserve, so that we can ensure we know who’s coming into this country and who’s already here, that we need to go find.”
The app’s scheduling functionality for migrants was subsequently canceled on the first day of the Trump administration.