The House Republicans drew attention to a new “concerning” report that Mexican cartels are exploiting the CBP One app, the Biden administration’s phone app meant to streamline immigrant admission to the United States.
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) quickly dove into the Washington Examiner’s Aug. 4 investigation during a congressional hearing Tuesday near the Arizona border and said criminal organizations pounced on desperate immigrants by overriding the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app’s geofencing and requesting appointments with U.S. customs officials from anywhere in the world, a process that is supposed to only be possible in northern Mexico.
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“It is just reckless disregard for law and order and [President Joe Biden’s] implementation of open border policies … have caused the crisis that we see on the border and in the country,” Biggs said during his opening remarks.
“Here’s one concerning recent example that we have received. We have received reports of criminal cartels … taking advantage of Secretary Mayorkas’s open border policies,” said Biggs about the Washington Examiner report. “Cartels now are reportedly selling [virtual private network] services to migrants … to ignore the geofencing system before they’ve reached northern Mexico.”
The Washington Examiner learned through a review of unclassified internal CBP documents and communications that the Mexican government has allowed any immigrant who enters the country from Guatemala to continue traveling to the U.S. border if they have obtained an appointment on the CBP One phone app.
The Mexican government’s National Immigration Institute, or INM, earlier this summer ordered its immigration officials to turn away all non-Mexican citizens who do not have a CBP One app appointment, according to one of the documents. Officers set up checkpoints in the southern state of Chiapas and have conducted arrests at these encounters.
The move would seem to be in the interest of the U.S. Cartels, though, have turned the app on its head and used Mexico’s policy to its advantage by overpowering the app and are raking in profits from any immigrant who wishes to enter Mexico. Once immigrants arrive at the Guatemala-Mexico border or in Chiapas, the INM will let them proceed.
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Cartels have been selling immigrants a service that provides them with an internet connection through a VPN. Rather than use a regular internet service provider in the user’s location, a VPN routes a device’s internet connection through a private service so that the app cannot tell if the person is in northern Mexico.
Congress is on its annual recess break in August, but five GOP members of Congress attended the hearing Tuesday. Biggs criticized Democrats for not showing up.
