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What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future - Seeking Asylum Via App

Slate Daily Feed

Slate

Business, News, Society & Culture

3.91.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 April 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

CBP One, U.S. Customs and Border Protection's app that is supposed to make crossing the border more efficient, is littered with bugs. But even a perfectly functional smartphone app would pose problems for people seeking asylum on the southern U.S. border. 


Guest: Arelis Hernández, Washington Post reporter

Gia Del Pino, director of communications at the Kino Border Initiative

Felicia Rangel Samponaro, director of the Sidewalk School


Host: Lizzie O’Leary


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Transcript

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0:00.0

If you've never been to Metamoros, Mexico, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas,

0:09.4

Felicia, Ranjal, Samponaro wants you to know what the city's park looks like, because

0:15.0

it's not a park anymore.

0:17.0

It's a makeshift home for people trying to get to the U.S.

0:21.0

Whole families live out in what used to be Metamoros' park, and at its height, like

0:26.5

a month or two ago, we had over 2,000 people living in this park, and this small space one

0:33.4

on top of the other.

0:34.6

So there's also trash, there's only four porta-potties for all of these people.

0:41.3

So it's just really unsanitary, and then you're living outside amongst the cartels that

0:47.9

run those cities.

0:50.2

Cities like Metamoros and Renosa, which also has a large encampment.

0:55.0

The camps have grown in shrunk over the years, largely depending on U.S. immigration policy.

1:00.6

The people living in them often come from places like Venezuela or Honduras.

1:05.4

Some have endured terrifying journeys just to get to Mexico.

1:09.4

They don't have tents, so what they've done is they have repurposed trash bags and blankets,

1:16.1

and they've gotten like sticks or branches, and they've dug the branches into the ground

1:22.0

like you would a tent.

1:27.3

Felicia runs the sidewalk school, which provides education, medical care, and other assistance

1:33.4

to families seeking asylum in the U.S.

1:36.5

And since January, that has also meant providing tech support.

1:41.2

Because if you want to apply for asylum, you have to do it through an app.

1:45.6

An app called CBP1 from Customs and Border Protection.

...

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