(The Lion) — Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is launching a new app that will allow illegal aliens and parolees to self-deport.
If the immigrants use the “leave now” function and self-deport, they will preserve the right to enter the U.S. legally in the future.
“If they don’t [use the app and self-deport], we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return,” said Noem in a statement.
The introduction of the app marks a new phase in the Trump administration’s effort to tighten border security. Previously, the administration was concentrating on finding and deporting illegal aliens who had criminal records.
Now, the administration will change focus to include immigrants who were improperly allowed to enter the country under President Joe Biden’s abuse of immigrant paroles.
Border Czar Tom Homan said the administration’s deportation policy is “worst first,” which means concentrating on those with criminal records, reported NBC News.
In February, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) under Trump deported about 11,000 illegal aliens, compared with 12,000 in February of last year under Biden. But the lower numbers reflect the fact that fewer people are crossing illegally at the border, said NBC.
The new “Home” app will replace the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) “One” app, which DHS said was abused by the Biden administration to allow 1.5 million people to enter the U.S. under the humanitarian parole program.
Republicans have said that abuse of the parole program was allowed to help reduce the numbers of illegal crossings that Biden had to report while he was president.
“Do you know how you reduce illegal immigration, according to the left?… You make illegal immigration legal,” said Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, according to Fox News.
The launch of the new app will help DHS restore the parole program to a case-by-case basis, versus the broad permissions granted under Biden, said DHS in a statement.
“The app provides illegal aliens in the United States with a straightforward way to declare their intent to voluntarily depart, offering them the chance to leave before facing harsher consequences,” said Pete Flores, acting commissioner of CBP.
Meanwhile, Trump has been considering whether to issue a blanket revocation for all paroles improperly issued by the Biden administration.
Already the administration has signaled it will revoke the paroles for 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who were improperly paroled by Biden as soon as this month, according to a report by Reuters, which pegged the total number of parolees at 1.8 million.
Trump is considering exemptions for parolees from countries such as Ukraine, which has legitimate humanitarian concerns because of the ongoing war with Russia.
“We’re not looking to hurt anybody, we’re certainly not looking to hurt them, and I’m looking at that,” Trump told reporters about the exception for Ukraine, according to Reuters. “There were some people that think that’s appropriate, and some people don’t, and I’ll be making the decision pretty soon.”
With the war in Ukraine looking to possibly wind up soon, it will be harder for Ukrainians to make an argument for exceptions.
Applications to the controversial program under Biden were halted as soon as Trump took office amid reports of widespread fraud in humanitarian paroles.
A report by Biden’s DHS found evidence of fraud by sponsors who profited from their sponsorship, supplied fake addresses, used the Social Security numbers of dead people, and sponsors with multiple applications, said the Washington Post.
“According to the report, over 100,000 sponsor application forms were filled out by just 3,218 sponsors,” wrote Sen. Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska. “The same credentials were used over and over—hundreds of times in some cases. Twenty-four of the 1,000 most used [Social Security] numbers on sponsor application forms belonged to a dead person. Almost 3,000 forms used non-existent sponsor zip codes.”
Leaked reports of fraud caused the Biden administration to pause approvals for paroles for two weeks during the presidential campaign.
“The Biden-Harris administration abused the humanitarian parole program to indiscriminately allow 1.5 million migrants to enter our country,” said a DHS spokesperson when Trump was inaugurated. “This was all stopped on day one of the Trump administration. This action will return the humanitarian parole program to its original purpose of looking at migrants on a case-by-case basis.”
And now there’s even an app for it.