CBP One app compared to ‘Disney FastPass’ by Rep. Matt Gaetz

The Biden administration’s CBP One App was compared to a “Disney FastPass” for migrants into the US by a GOP congressman during a heated hearing about the US-Mexico border Wednesday.

During a Capitol Hill grilling of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Wednesday morning, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) of Florida accused the Biden administration of allowing migrants into the US indefinitely through the app, which he likened to a theme park pass.

“This app that you’ve got everybody downloading is like the Disney FastPass into the country — never to be subject to be actual removal,” Gaetz declared.

The CBP One App is the approved legal way asylum-seekers arriving at the southern border can ask for refuge in the US, by applying for an appointment with border patrol to present their case before attempting to enter the country.

“Congressman, I disagree with everything you’re saying,” Mayorkas responded.

The government recently raised the number of CBP One appointments across the Southern Border to 1,450 a day, although an appointment is not a guarantee of entry into the country.

However, there is still no publicly released data as to how many asylum-seekers have been allowed in versus the number who have been rejected.

“You’ve sent the message to the cartels, and they’ve taken this app and you’ve digitized illegal immigration and you’ve scaled it to the moon,” Gaetz blasted to Mayorkas, although he provided no evidence to back up those claims.

Although the CBP One app was launched during the Trump Administration it has been greatly expanded in the Biden era to allow migrants seeking protection from their own governments — particularly Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans — into the country.

President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have championed the app claiming it reduces illegal border crossings because asylum seekers have to wait in Mexico while they secure an appointment before entering the US or face harsh penalties if they are apprehended crossing illegally.

The feds point to numbers of migrant encounters at the border, which in June were 144,000, a drop of 30% from May, when widespread use of the CBP One App was implemented.

“These are the lowest monthly Southwest border encounter numbers since February 2021,” US Customs and Border Protection stated.

However, the same border stats show apprehensions of illegal crossers were up from 35,000 in May to 45,000 in June — an increase of 28% — showing that once it became more difficult to enter the country legally, more migrants chose the illegal route.

Migrants who do not have appointment or cross the border illegally will be denied an opportunity to seek asylum in the US, the administration claims.

“What you’ve done to execute this Mayorkas Doctrine, where so long as you don’t commit a crime you get to stay here and burden our hospitals, burden our schools, burden our social services, burden our jails,” charged Gaetz.

Members of Congress pointed out it takes years for asylum seekers to get a final ruling from backlogged immigration courts, which let people know if they qualify for asylum. Historically less than 30% of all asylum cases filed are eventually approved.

During the hearing, Mayorkas was pressed several times to provide the number of migrants who are released into the country and later ordered to be removed by a judge.

Mayorkas told the committee he’d provide the number later.

Rep. Darrell Issa came back with a DHS figure showing that 83% of asylum-seekers allowed into the US did not actually qualify for protection.

“It’s 83% according to his own documents commencing the period from 2014-2019 and prehaps it has imporoved, but I doubt it,” Issa shot back.