Promises of an immigration crackdown by President Donald Trump through his election campaign are now underway.
Trump on Monday signed a series of executive orders including declaring a national emergency at the southern border of the United States.
"Action needs to be taken immediately and yes he's fulfilling on that promise," said Sonia Alexandra, who lives in West Palm Beach.
His executive orders also shut down the Customs Border and Protection (CBP) app known as CBP One.
The app is a legal way for immigrants to upload documents and schedule appointments to come into the U.S. to try and claim asylum.
On it's website, CBP posted the following:
Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One™ that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled.
For further inquiries, please contact CBP’s Office of Public Affairs at CBPMediaRelations@cbp.dhs.gov.
"I think the rhetoric of 'we want people to come legally' is just not so," said Ira Kurzban.
He's an immigration attorney who said many of his clients have family they have been trying to get into the United States.
"All they've done is act in a way that's cruel to the people that were caught in the middle," said Kurzban. "People that used CBP to try and make an appointment, they just totally shut it off and now you have tens of thousands of people stranded."
The app was for people seeking asylum from Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti and Mexico.
"All they're doing now is forcing people into a situation where either they're going to rush the border or they're going to hire smugglers to come into the United States," said Kurzban.
Demand for appointments are high.
According to the Associated Press, CPB reported that daily 280,000 people were on their phones trying to get one of the 1,450 available slots.
"It has added a lot of cases to a system that was already overwhelmed and so the legitimate cases were affected by it, because you have to wait a lot longer," said Richard Hujber.
He's an immigration attorney who said that the CBP One app was riddled with technical issues and vetting flaws.
"You take a picture as part of the app, you show up, sometimes they match, sometimes they didn't," said Hujber. "There wasn't really background checks going on from what I can tell."
Right now, Hujber said there's no alternative app people can use when it comes to scheduling appointments to seek asylum.
CBP said scheduling on the app was launched in January 2023, and 936,500 people were able to schedule appointments via the app through the end of December 2024.
