Sinclair Broadcast Group’s The National Desk is spreading misinformation about immigration and the CBP One app

A Sinclair anchor reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s CBP One app increased illegal immigration when the program does the complete opposite

Written by Chloe Simon & Pete Tsipis

Published

During an October 29 segment on The National Desk about the “number of illegal migrant crossings” during President Joe Biden’s administration, Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Jan Jeffcoat misleadingly reported that the migrants who used the CBP One app should be included in that number. 

Previously, on October 25, apparently referring to encounters and apprehensions at the border, Jeffcoat claimed that “we're learning as many as 14 million illegal migrants entered the U.S. in the past four years,” mentioning that this number “excludes the 1.3 million migrants who used Biden-Harris parole programs,” of whom at least 420,000 used the CBP One app. Repeat guest Mark Morgan, a senior fellow with the extremist anti-immigration group Federation for American Immigration Reform, also appeared on The National Desk on October 15, claiming that the Biden administration had “unlawfully used an app” to “actually make it easier for individuals that should not enter the country to be able to enter the country.” 

Sinclair’s attempts to correlate usage of the CBP One app with increased illegal immigration are not based in reality. 

Since its launch in 2020, the CBP One app has been a tool for the Department of Homeland Security to identify and track asylum-seekers while allowing them to apply for humanitarian parole. The American Immigration Council describes the app as being for “migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum at a port of entry,” as well as being for “Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans seeking to secure travel authorization.” 

The app allows “noncitizens without appropriate documents for admission who seek to travel to the United States through certain southwest border land ports of entry (POEs) the ability to submit information through a module within the application instead of coming directly to wait at a POE”. Nevertheless, only a small portion of users have been admitted as asylum seekers into the U.S. While there have been over 64 million applications submitted through the app, only “813,000 individuals” had “successfully scheduled appointments to present at ports of entry” using CBP One, as of August 2024. 

NBC News has reported that the app has been helpful to those on the border, quoting Texas pastor Abraham Barberi, who claimed the app has “contributed to the decline” in illegal entries. Barberi said, “I think now people think, ‘Well, I don’t have to go all the way to the border, I don’t have to cross the river illegally.'” Forbes also noted that immigration analysts have credited “the ability to use the CBP One app” in helping “reduce unlawful migration from Haiti.”

From the October 29, 2024, edition of Sinclair Broadcasting Group's The National Desk 

JAN JEFFCOAT (ANCHOR): A new analysis found the number of illegal migrant crossings is 25% higher than what the Biden-Harris administration has said publicly. The Telegraph reporting data by Customs and Border Protection showing 7.15 million tried to enter the U.S. since Biden and Harris took office, but that does not include gotaways, which add another 1.8 million, bringing the total to roughly nine million. And that does not include, they say, the migrants who've used the CBP One app or parole programs. The Telegraph writing, "Critics accused the White House of attempting to 'launder' migration figures and deliberately misrepresent its record on border security."