Trump DHS pick Noem pledges to end controversial app used by migrants on ‘day one’
Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, told lawmakers that she will end the controversial CBP One app, and a related migrant parole program that has allowed nearly 1.5 million immigrants into the US.
“Yes, Senator, if confirmed and I have the opportunity to be secretary, on day one CBP One will be shut down,” Noem told Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., at her confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Noem was first asked by Hawley if the southern border was secure.
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“Senator, no, the southern border is not secure today. But in just three days, we will have a new president in this country, President Donald J. Trump. And he will secure our border,” she said.
She was then asked about the use of the CBP One app, which allows immigrants to be paroled into the U.S. The app was created during the first Trump administration to assist with scheduling cargo inspections. However, it was controversially expanded in 2023 to allow migrants to make an appointment at a port of entry to be allowed in, initially due to an exception from the Title 42 public health order and then, since May, to be paroled into the U.S. as part of the Biden administration’s expansion of “lawful pathways.”
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As of the end of December, more than 936,500 individuals had made appointments to be paroled through the app, according to Customs and Border Protection.
Connecting to that was a parole process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans (CHNV), which allows up to 30,000 nationals a month from those countries to receive travel authorization to enter the U.S. after a vetting process. As of the end of December, about 531,000 nationals had been allowed in through the program. It was first applied to Venezuelans in October 2022 and expanded to the other three nationalities in January 2023.
While the Biden administration said it was a part of an effort to encourage legal, rather than illegal, immigration and had been part of a slowing down of nationals entering illegally from those groups, opponents condemned it as a “concierge service” for otherwise illegal mass migration.
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Noem said she would end CBP One on the first day in office, although the agency will keep some information.
“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,” she clarified.
She then pointed to CHNV, “where our federal government actually paid to fly people into this country directly from other countries without any vetting or knowing who they are.”
“So there’s several of these programs that need to be eliminated, and we need to ensure that we’re following legal immigration laws,” she said.
Hawley followed up, asking if she would put an end to “abuse” in the parole system.
“We will go back to case by case evaluation of these parole cases and ensure that we have more resources, if you will partner with us, to make sure that our legal immigration system is fully utilized, that we have more judges, more immigration courts, so that we can process people legally and make sure that they are, going through that process rather than, like Joe Biden has done, use this as an excuse to allow people to come into our country with no consequences,” she said.
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Noem, if confirmed, will oversee DHS at a time when the agency is expected to launch a historic mass deportation operation targeting illegal immigrants within the U.S., while also attempting to expand border security at the southern and northern borders.
She will work with “border czar” Tom Homan, who was picked by Trump in November to head the operation and border security efforts.