New U.S. Border Protection app for asylum seekers jammed by heavy use

A Russian native fleeing for a safe life in Minneapolis is losing hope.

Mikhail Savostin arrived in Mexico on May 7 on his journey to claim asylum in the United States and downloaded a new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app to schedule an appointment. But it hasn't been working.

He registered for the CBP One app and found an available slot for this coming Tuesday at the Tijuana border crossing. Then the appointment disappeared in the system. Savostin checked the app 10 times an hour day after day. Nothing functioned. He could no longer see any open times, nor did he see anyone he could contact for help.

He is among countless numbers of migrants idled as they try to lawfully cross the border using the app. Savostin is trying to make his way north to build a new life amid other Russians who have formed a community here. While he struggles for answers and is running out of money in Mexico, his friend and potential sponsor Elena Mityushina of Maple Grove checks on him daily.

"He's worried about being stuck there for a long time," she said.

CBP recently launched the app in an effort to bring a more orderly method of processing the surge of migrants at the southern border. It upgraded the app this month to expand daily appointments from 740 to 1,000.

"Scheduling an appointment in CBP One provides a safe, orderly and humane process for noncitizens to access ports of entry rather than attempting to enter the United States irregularly," the agency said.

But migrants like Savostin report that it's plagued with glitches.

"I feel very frustrated," the 46-year-old said on a video call from Mexico City.

He held up his phone to display the "system error" message on CBP One.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last week in a White House news briefing that the government has identified glitches on the app.

"The greatest challenge with respect to the CBP One app is not a technological challenge but rather the fact that we have many more migrants than we have the capacity to make appointments for," Mayorkas said.

"The greatest level of frustration is actually being able to make the appointment, not the utility of the CBP One app itself. That is, again, another example of a broken immigration system."

Even after the app was launched in January, CBP reported encounters with 5,000 to 7,000 people a day on the southern border.

The increase of migrants there has contributed to the record-high pending immigration court cases in Minnesota and nationwide. The CBP reports 1.4 million encounters with migrants at the southern border for the first seven months of this fiscal year — compared with 2.8 million in 2022 and 1.7 million in 2021. Among them is a surge of Russians seeking asylum since the invasion of Ukraine.

Savostin was a political activist who spoke out against the Russian government and was jailed several times. He was named a political prisoner by Memorial, a human rights group in Moscow. Fearing more retaliation from law enforcement, he left for Cyprus in 2021. He connected with Mityushina, who leads a local group of antiwar Russians; she is helping Savostin and his friend reach Minnesota.

"I feel hopeless … there's no structure or process," Savostin said. "It's just not working."