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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Justo Robles in Tijuana

‘We only got errors’: migrants struggle with asylum claim app at US-Mexico border

people hold phones
Migrants seeking asylum in the US use their phones to request an appointment at a land port of entry to the US, in Ciudad Juarez in January. Photograph: José Luis González/Reuters

When they arrived in Ciudad Juárez on 17 March, across the US-Mexican border from El Paso, Texas, Nestor Quintero and his family were penniless, hungry and homeless. But their primary concern was getting their hands on a smartphone.

The 35-year-old Venezuelan migrant had found out in Tapachula, a city close to the Mexico-Guatemala border, that people hoping to enter the US to ask for asylum needed to secure an appointment through a recently introduced mobile phone app known as CBP One.

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