For the past couple of years, former President Joe Biden's administration facilitated the entry into this country of generally otherwise inadmissible illegal migrants through the use of a special mobile phone app known as CBP One.

The CBP One app was reportedly used more than 166 million times over the past two years by an unknown number of would-be asylum seekers to try and schedule an appointment to be processed by immigration officials at a port of entry, according to the Daily Caller.

That all ended on Monday when President Donald Trump, as promised, shut down the CBP One app as part of his broader Day One executive actions to fully secure the nation's southern border with Mexico.

App for migrant processing grossly expanded under Biden

CBS News reported on Sunday that around 270,000 migrants are currently waiting on the Mexican side of the border to schedule or fulfill an appointment made through the CBP One app to be processed at a port of entry as an asylum seeker, after which they will be granted admission and an opportunity to apply for a work permit while awaiting a determination on their asylum claim.

The app, first launched in exceptionally limited form near the end of President Trump's first term, was substantially expanded under the Biden administration in early 2023, and since then has facilitated the entry of nearly 1 million migrants who otherwise would not have been eligible to legally enter the U.S.

Internal documents obtained by CBS News revealed that an unknown number of migrants used the CBP One app more than 166 million times over the past two years to try to schedule an appointment at a port of entry, with many of those being multiple repeated attempts by individual migrants seeking one of the limited 1,450 appointments per day.

Some migrants reportedly waited for months to be able to schedule an appointment, which would typically be set for around three weeks later, and it was estimated that around 30,000 migrants would be entering the country over the coming weeks to fulfill already scheduled appointments.

CBP One app shut down

Those tens of thousands of migrants waiting in Mexico to cross the border and claim asylum at a port of entry using appointments already scheduled through the CBP One app will not be entering the U.S. now, at least not legally, according to the Daily Caller.

At the top of the page on the app's webpage is an update that states "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."

That is a direct result of an executive order issued by President Trump on his first day that issued broad directives toward the goal of "Securing Our Borders, part of which involved "adjusting parole policies" that had been vastly expanded and reinterpreted under the Biden administration.

The first order of business in that section of the order was to "Cease using the 'CBP One' application as a method of paroling or facilitating the entry of otherwise inadmissible aliens into the United States."

This shouldn't be a big surprise

The immediate suspension of the CBP One app and cancellation of pending appointments may have caught some migrants and their advocates by surprise, but the app's impending demise had already been signaled ahead of time by President Trump and his nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, per the Daily Caller.

"If confirmed and I have the opportunity to be secretary, on day one, CBP One will be shut down," Noem told senators during a recent confirmation hearing, though she added that "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."

Whether the CBP One app is later relaunched in its original limited form to help expedite legitimate asylum claims, or whether the Biden administration's massive expansion of the tool has permanently ruined it for everyone, remains to be seen.