WASHINGTON D.C. — Today, House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement Chairman Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Dan Bishop (R-NC) delivered the following opening statements in a hearing to examine the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) unlawful use of the CBP One app to mass-parole hundreds of thousands of inadmissible aliens into the United States.

Watch Subcommittee Chairman Higgins’ full opening statement here.

As prepared for delivery:

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine how the Biden administration and the Department of Homeland Security have expanded the use of CBP One to parole inadmissible aliens into the United States. This hearing will focus on DHS’ use of CBP One to institute so-called “lawful pathways” for illegal aliens without proper documentation, the application’s functions and features, and the security risks that might be exploited by cartels.

DHS continues to fail in its basic homeland security mission: to secure the border. Secretary Mayorkas’ open border policies, fueled by the expansion of CBP One App, has allowed virtually any foreign national from abroad to make an appointment and enter the country. Simply put, this application’s users know that a CBP One appointment is their ticket into the United States.

In January 2023, the Department of Homeland Security announced that CBP One would be expanded to include an appointment scheduling function for illegal aliens without prior authorization to register for inspection and processing at ports of entry. CBP One was created to reduce wait times for perishable commercial goods passing through these ports of entry for legal trade. But the Mayorkas DHS has repurposed the CBP One App.

Under Secretary Mayorkas, we have seen over 460,000 illegal aliens schedule appointments to present at these ports using CBP One. Most of these illegal aliens are paroled and released into the United States, and we don’t even know who they really are. This is an abuse of parole by design.

CBP originally allowed 1,000 CBP One appointments per day in May 2023. Three months later, they increased to 1,450 per day. Ironically, the Department continues to praise CBP One’s appointment capabilities, while failing to do the thing that would solve this crisis: stop the flow.

Documents received by our Committee show that from January through September 2023, more than 266,000, or nearly 96% of those illegal aliens who scheduled appointments via CBP One, were simply issued a Notice to Appear and paroled into the United States. That means only four percent of illegal alien parolees are detained or removed.

CBP One is now being weaved into other parole programs like the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan, or CHNV parole program and Family Reunification Parole, or FRP, which includes nationals and immediate family members from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras. Through the end of 2024, over 357,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans were granted parole.

But in the end, Secretary Mayorkas’ shell game doesn’t end here. Illegal aliens are also taking advantage of a significant CBP One loophole which allows them to present themselves at a port of entry instead of scheduling an appointment via the app if they experience problems due to “language barrier, illiteracy, significant technical failure, or other ongoing and serious obstacles.”  There are also numerous technical and security problems with CBP One.

Secretary Mayorkas has encouraged these aliens to make use of the so-called “lawful, safe, and orderly pathways” by using CBP One.

Secretary Mayorkas has stated that these border policies are “safe, orderly, and humane” but anyone familiar with the CBP One application knows that his border policies are just a racket designed to expedite illegal immigration into America and leave us at risk.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today.

Watch Subcommittee Chairman Bishop’s full opening statement here.

As prepared for delivery:

Today’s hearing will examine the Department of Homeland Security’s expansion of the CBP One mobile application and its role in facilitating mass illegal immigration into the United States.

Since January 2023, the Department of Homeland Security has expanded the use of the CBP One application in two ways to implement its open borders agenda. First, inadmissible aliens located in Mexico can use CBP One to schedule appointments at the Southwest border. Second, inadmissible aliens from certain countries like Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, who participate in the Department’s abuse of parole programs, can use CBP One to request permission to fly into U.S. airports.

To date, more than 459,000 CBP One appointments have been scheduled at the Southwest border ports of entry. In 2023 alone, more than 320,000 inadmissible aliens flew into U.S. airports through parole programs using CBP One. These numbers don’t even count toward the over 2.8 million aliens crossing our borders illegally nationwide since January 2023.

The aliens using CBP One aren’t just getting appointments or hopping on flights, they’re also nearly categorically being released into the United States. According to the Department’s own data, from January through September 2023, 96 percent of aliens with CBP One appointments at the Southwest border were released. The probability of release is just as assured for those flying into airports. From January through June 2023, 97 percent of aliens who flew into a U.S. airport were paroled into the United States.

This is astonishing considering that the Department recently admitted in litigation that allowing these aliens to fly into U.S. airports creates “operational vulnerabilities that could be exploited by bad actors.”

The administration claims that the use of the CBP One app will slow the flow of aliens illegally entering the United States and cut cartels out of the migration process. But the facts bely these claims. Since the CBP One expansion in January 2023, encounters of illegal aliens have reached monthly all-time highs and are on pace to reach two million again this fiscal year. Meanwhile, cartels still control the migration process. They control the smuggling routes that aliens use to get to Mexico, they actively exploiting security loopholes through CBP One, and they clearly still control the Southwest border.

This expanded CBP One use is not a solution to the border crisis; it is a desperate attempt to solve the administration’s political crisis and manage the optics of a chaotic border by streamlining catch-and-release policies. It is open borders with the option to check in through a mobile app on a smartphone.

Alarmingly, data from the Department shows that aliens that make it to Mexico to schedule CBP One appointments at the Southwest border come from what the FBI considers special interest countries, including Russia, China, and Iran.

Despite the Department’s claim that inadmissible aliens are thoroughly screened and vetted, we know that the process is inadequate. If an alien has a criminal record in his country of origin, CBP has almost no way of knowing.

How many of the approximately 750,000 aliens that have been released into the country under this administration’s expansion of the CBP One app have gone on to commit acts of violence against Americans? The country has witnessed the tragic results of these programs with the recent the rape of a 15-year-old child in Massachusetts by a Haitian allowed into the U.S. through the CHNV program.

The American people deserve robust screening and vetting processes for all prospective entrants, they deserve a secure border, and they deserve a federal government that upholds its fundamental duty to protect the safety and security of the American people. With the expansion of CBP One, however, I fear that the administration once again intends on only managing the public perception of illegal immigration instead of actually securing the border.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I look forward to their testimony.
 

###