CENTRAL VALLEY, CA - An independent report conducted on the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's app, CBP One, flagged a security concern over 350 immigrants that illegally crossed the border over a span of eight months, into the United States listing the same address in California as their final destination. The house is reportedly a small four-bedroom located somewhere in the central valley.
According to Newsweek, the CBP One app warned that it was open to security breaches. In the 18 months since its introduction, over 756,000 appointments at Ports of Entry have been scheduled through CBP One, but the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General said that the app was launched without enough thought about its risks.
In the report, seven addresses were highlighted as frequently used by illegal immigrants making appointments at various points of entry. The report specifically pointed to one location in California; a four-bedroom family home, which had been used by 358 individuals over an eight-month period as their final destination address when applying for a CBP One appointment.
The report said, "Of the 358 noncitizens, we identified 266 noncitizens with different last names who were potentially unrelated to one another." The report also noted that immigration officers at one port of entry cannot see data on appointments at another, making it more difficult for someone to flag the repeated use of the same address.
Nicole Elizabeth Ramos, director of Al Otro Lado's border rights project said in a statement, "I just want to point out that having an address in the United States is not a legal requirement to be able to seek asylum. That is an additional requirement imposed by CBP via the app in order to limit who could be eligible for international protection in the United States."
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that border patrol does not have a means of flagging suspicious data coming from its own app. The app does, however, had the ability to notify agents of any suspicious individuals known to the government when they seek to approach the border. The OIG said that if CBP did analyze appointment data more thoroughly, more agents would be better prepared when carrying out interviews with new arrivals.
Ramos, an immigration advocate, said that it was seemingly impossible for many users to secure an appointment, with some individuals waiting up to 10 months to been seen by U.S. border agents.
Some other concerns or vulnerabilities found in the CBP One app is that some illegal immigrants using the app were able to create multiple accounts in order to make repeated attempts at getting an appointment at the U.S. border. The OIG said that this was fraudulent and left others with a lesser change of getting their cases heard by border officials.
In one case, an Armenian illegal immigrant submitted 466 registrations in one month alone in order to secure their appointment. Some accounts were created within seconds of each other, leading to officials believing that illegal immigrants were using "bots or scripts" to sign up on their behalf. CBP did address this issue.
Ramos said that some illegal immigrants ask or pay others to help them get an appointment to cross the border, adding that they should not be blamed for what those individuals did on their behalf. Other security issues were highlighted in the report, including "software weaknesses," which the OIG said could leave CBP's illegal immigrants data open to misuse.
Analysis of the app and web-version's code showed that attackers could bypass security protocols and attack users. The OIG criticized CBP for not implementing patches to the app in a timely manner to fix known issues and said that it was against wider DHS protocols. CBP has responded to the OIG's findings, saying that it has worked to introduce tougher security measures earlier in the year, including allowing officers all along the border to access data from other ports of entry.
In a statement to Newsweek, a CBP spokesperson said, "CBP has made significant improvements and continues to strengthen the application to address risk-related issues and concerns, including measures to ensure equity in appointment allocations, following the DHS OIG fieldwork on CBP One during the timeframe of August 2023 to January 2024. CBP has been diligent in working to prevent and counter any misuse of the application or any potential exploitation of noncitizens from bad actors, and will continue to strengthen those countermeasures."
The OIG said that it would not close the matter until it had seen evidence from CBP that it had acted on its recommendations to make the CBP One app safer.
According to Newsweek, the CBP One app warned that it was open to security breaches. In the 18 months since its introduction, over 756,000 appointments at Ports of Entry have been scheduled through CBP One, but the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General said that the app was launched without enough thought about its risks.
In the report, seven addresses were highlighted as frequently used by illegal immigrants making appointments at various points of entry. The report specifically pointed to one location in California; a four-bedroom family home, which had been used by 358 individuals over an eight-month period as their final destination address when applying for a CBP One appointment.
The report said, "Of the 358 noncitizens, we identified 266 noncitizens with different last names who were potentially unrelated to one another." The report also noted that immigration officers at one port of entry cannot see data on appointments at another, making it more difficult for someone to flag the repeated use of the same address.
Nicole Elizabeth Ramos, director of Al Otro Lado's border rights project said in a statement, "I just want to point out that having an address in the United States is not a legal requirement to be able to seek asylum. That is an additional requirement imposed by CBP via the app in order to limit who could be eligible for international protection in the United States."
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that border patrol does not have a means of flagging suspicious data coming from its own app. The app does, however, had the ability to notify agents of any suspicious individuals known to the government when they seek to approach the border. The OIG said that if CBP did analyze appointment data more thoroughly, more agents would be better prepared when carrying out interviews with new arrivals.
Ramos, an immigration advocate, said that it was seemingly impossible for many users to secure an appointment, with some individuals waiting up to 10 months to been seen by U.S. border agents.
Some other concerns or vulnerabilities found in the CBP One app is that some illegal immigrants using the app were able to create multiple accounts in order to make repeated attempts at getting an appointment at the U.S. border. The OIG said that this was fraudulent and left others with a lesser change of getting their cases heard by border officials.
In one case, an Armenian illegal immigrant submitted 466 registrations in one month alone in order to secure their appointment. Some accounts were created within seconds of each other, leading to officials believing that illegal immigrants were using "bots or scripts" to sign up on their behalf. CBP did address this issue.
Ramos said that some illegal immigrants ask or pay others to help them get an appointment to cross the border, adding that they should not be blamed for what those individuals did on their behalf. Other security issues were highlighted in the report, including "software weaknesses," which the OIG said could leave CBP's illegal immigrants data open to misuse.
Analysis of the app and web-version's code showed that attackers could bypass security protocols and attack users. The OIG criticized CBP for not implementing patches to the app in a timely manner to fix known issues and said that it was against wider DHS protocols. CBP has responded to the OIG's findings, saying that it has worked to introduce tougher security measures earlier in the year, including allowing officers all along the border to access data from other ports of entry.
In a statement to Newsweek, a CBP spokesperson said, "CBP has made significant improvements and continues to strengthen the application to address risk-related issues and concerns, including measures to ensure equity in appointment allocations, following the DHS OIG fieldwork on CBP One during the timeframe of August 2023 to January 2024. CBP has been diligent in working to prevent and counter any misuse of the application or any potential exploitation of noncitizens from bad actors, and will continue to strengthen those countermeasures."
The OIG said that it would not close the matter until it had seen evidence from CBP that it had acted on its recommendations to make the CBP One app safer.
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