Harry Fones, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

MODERATOR:  Hello.  Good morning.  I am Natalia Molano, director of the U.S. Department of State’s Miami Media Hub.  This is an on-the-record press briefing in English with simultaneous interpretation to Spanish.  Please find the globe icon on the lower-left corner of your screen to select your language.

(In Spanish.)

We are privileged to have Harry Fones, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  He will discuss the updates to the CBP Home mobile application that offers illegal immigrants the opportunity to voluntarily depart the United States.

We will begin this hub call with opening remarks, and then I will moderate questions from journalists.  PDAS Fones, you may begin your remarks.

MR FONES:  Hi.  Good morning, everybody.  As mentioned, my name is Harry Fones; I’m the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Public Affairs.  Thank you all for joining this call.  I want to just start off with a couple of remarks from the top, kind of talking about the CBP Home mobile app.

So this got started – originally this was the CBP One app that was used under the previous administration to allow folks into our country.  It was used to circumnavigate our immigration system.  What we have done under the Trump Administration is turn this into an app to help people who are here illegally return home.  So this was originally announced back in March, but the really big announcement and the thing that most people have really latched on to is our announcement on May 5th, which started the travel assistance and voluntary self-deportation process and program.

What this does is that if you are here in the United States illegally, you can download the CBP Home app, you can register on it, and the United States Government will provide you with a free flight home; you will also receive a $1,000 stipend that is paid once it’s confirmed that you have departed the United States.  And this app is – gives other benefits too, and that’s one of the things we kind of wanted to get into today, is in June we had a really major update to the app to make it a lot more streamlined, a lot more user-friendly.  But one of the other things that was announced with it is that we are now forgiving failure to depart fines.  So these are fines for people who have not – have a voluntary departure order that they haven’t honored, and those are fines that can be up to $2,000 to almost $10,000.  Or this would forgive if you have failure to comply with a final removal order fine, which can be up to $998 a day.

So that was actually a really big update that I don’t think a lot of people have seen, and that’s one of the things I really wanted to highlight today.  And this kind of goes hand in hand because with those failure to depart fines, the Department of Homeland Security actually announced on June 27th that we are working with DOJ to make it easier and more efficient for us to actually administer those fines, and we’re streamlining the process through a federal rule.  And so I think that that’s a message that should be out there, is that this app, the whole time we’ve been using it as the CBP Home app, is this is a great alternative to deportation by the United States Government.

So if you use this app, it does deprioritize you from ICE’s deportation list, and it can also help possibly preserve your ability to come back into the United States legally later.  If you don’t use this app and you don’t depart the U.S., we are enforcing this nation’s laws when it comes to immigration now, and it could result in a deportation.  So we’re really stressing that.  This is a really good app.  Like I said, really wanted to highlight the fact that we’re attempting to make this a lot easier for people to use it, and that we’ve kind of continued to expand the benefits of people using it.

So with that, that’s kind of my opening remarks, and I’m happy to take some questions.

MODERATOR:  We will begin taking questions from journalists.  Please be sure to write your name and affiliation in the user label to help us identify you.  If you have a question, please raise your virtual hand.  You may ask your question in English or Spanish.  Once we call on you, we will unmute you, and then you must activate your audio on the platform.  Today’s briefing is on the record, attributable to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Harry Fones.

We will start with a question from Yolanda Magaña from El Mundo in El Salvador.  Okay, just one moment, we are – Yolanda Magaña, you are unmuted.  Please, go ahead.

Okay, we will move on then to Ingrid Castellanos from Telecorporación Salvadoreña Canal 6 from El Salvador.  Go ahead with your question on audio.

Okay, it seems like they did not activate their audio on their end.  Okay, we also have Laura Artal from VPI Venezuela.  Go ahead, Laura.

QUESTION:  (In Spanish.)

MODERATOR:  Yes, go ahead.

QUESTION:  (In Spanish.)

MR FONES:  I apologize.  The translation does not seem to have come through for that question.

MODERATOR:  Harry, did – please make sure you’ve selected the language in the globe icon.

MR FONES:  Yep.

MODERATOR:  Okay.

MR FONES:  Yep, it is activated.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  (In Spanish.)

QUESTION:  (In Spanish.)

MODERATOR:  (In Spanish.)

QUESTION:  (In Spanish.)

MR FONES:  State, I apologize, my – the translator’s still not coming through and I have it activated.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  She is asking what is the profile of immigrant that should be using the CBP Home app, and then keeping in mind the population of Venezuelan citizens who lost their TPS rights —

QUESTION:  (In Spanish.)

MODERATOR:  And is the U.S. willing to facilitate flights for the Venezuelan nationals who are detained in El Salvador?

QUESTION:  Thank you.

MR FONES:  Got it.  So definitely for the first part of this question that I can answer is CBP Home app is available to anybody who is illegally present in the United States.  Also for people who have – if you were with TPS and that has been terminated, you are able to use that – in fact, we encourage you to use that – use this program to get back.  As long as you are a noncriminal, you can use this program.  Again, all you have to do is download the app, enter your information, which is a fairly easy process, and then a representative will be in contact with you and will help you book the flight – your flight to return home and walk you completely through that process.  By using the system, you do get that $1,000 stipend once it is confirmed that you have exited the United States.  So the population that is able to use this is extremely large, and it’s, again, why we are encouraging this, why we’re trying to make sure people know about it, because this a great tool if you do not have legal status in the United States that you are able to use this.

I don’t want to get ahead of any announcements for the secondary question, but again, if you are in the United States and you no longer have legal status, you should use the CBP Home app to facilitate your return back to your home country.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  Thank you.  We have a journalist from Colombia, Diana Castrillón from Caracol.  And I believe that she should be able to answer it in English – I’m sorry – to ask the question in English.

QUESTION:  Hi, thank you for this space for us.  This is Diana from Caracol Radio news, radio station in Colombia.  We would like to know to-date if you know how many Colombians have applied to the CBP Home program, and in general how many migrants overall is the Trump Administration hoping to reach through this program and its benefits this year.

MR FONES:  Yeah, so I do not have a specific breakdown by country.  The general answer I can give for how many people have used this app is in the tens of thousands.  So a fairly large population has downloaded and started trying to use the app.  In terms of how many people we want to use it, again, don’t have a specific figure on this, but it’s – if you are in the United States and you do not have a legal status, you should use this app.  So part of that is, is whatever that number is, is that there’s two alternatives of how you leave this country if you do not have legal status, and that’s you can use the CBP Home app, which again has a lot of benefits – that’s why we’re encouraging its use; or it will be that you will face deportation.  So we want as many people as possible to use this because it is a much better alternative than the other option.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  I also see Daniel Collín from Guatemala.  Daniel, if you’re able to have your question in English; if not, I will translate it right after you ask it in Spanish.  Okay.  We’re not able to see Daniel Collín connected any longer.

And I see we have a question in the chat from Yolanda Magaña, and maybe I can just go ahead and read it in English – it’s in the chat for everyone to see – from Diario El Mundo in El Salvador.  Her question is:  “How many Salvadorian citizens have used the self-deportation method through the CBP Home app?  And what do you recommend to Salvadorian citizens who are undocumented who have American citizen – U.S. citizen children?  Do you think that the United States has legal control over the Venezuelans who are detained in El Salvador or has El Salvador – because El Salvador has said that they do not have legal jurisdiction over those Venezuelan citizens who are in El Salvador?”

MR FONES:  Yeah, so definitely can touch on the first two for this.  So once again, I do not have a country-by-country breakdown for this, but again, tens of thousands have used this app.  One of the things with CBP Home is if you are here illegally, you can use it to also register children and the whole family can utilize the CBP Home app.  And each individual who uses the app – so that would include the whole family – does get the benefits of this.  So that would include that $1,000 stipend does apply.  So if it’s a family of, let’s say, four, that family would receive a stipend of $4,000.

So again, if you do not have status in this country, we are encouraging you to use this app.  Because again, we are enforcing the laws of this country.  Deportations is a priority of this administration.  This is a much better alternative, especially not just as there’s the financial benefit, but there is the benefit that this could help preserve a way for you to come back into the United States into the future, whereas if you are deported, you will not be able to return to this country.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  Thank you.  I will now read a question from the chat as well, from Mario Pentón from Martí Noticias:  “If immigrants want to use the CPB Home app but do not want to return to their country of origin, can they still do it, or use the app?  For example, Cuban citizens, Venezuelan citizens, or Nicaraguan citizens?”

MR FONES:  That is a great question.  I will have to circle back.  State, if you can get that question to me, I just want to make sure I have a correct – 100 percent correct answer on that.

MODERATOR:  All right.  We are going to see – we have for NTN 24, Roberto.  If you can activate your audio, we’ll unmute you, and you can ask your question.  Roberto Macedonio from NTN 24, it’s a regional outlet.

Okay.  We’re not able to get his audio.  So let’s see.  We also have a question from Ecuador, Luis Miguel Barros here in the chat from TV Cuenca Digital.  All right.  The question in Spanish I’m about to translate is:  “All of the persons, individuals who self-deport using the CPB Home app – will they be free from sanctions for having illegally entered and lived illegally in the United States?”

MR FONES:  So every case – every case can be different, so I can’t give you an overall answer for that.  But one thing, again, I will stress is that this is a – this shows a positive action towards rectifying coming into this country illegally, and so that’s something I do want to stress, is that this does help preserve that option; whereas, again, the alternative is deportation, there would be no option to come back legally into this country.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  And we’re going to go to a last question from the chat as well from Univisión.  For the persons who already have the fees, the fees for not having left the United States after having a final order of deportation, can those people use the CPB Home app and still obtain the $1,000 departure bonus?

MR FONES:  Yes.  If you are being, again – if you have been assessed fines for failure to depart and you use the CPB Home app, those fines will be forgiven.  So as long as you are eligible to use the CPB Home app – so again, if you have other criminal convictions, that could prevent you from using the app.  But if your biggest concern is that you have been assessed fines for failure to depart, under the CPB Home program now you can use this app and those will be forgiven.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  Thank you so much.  I see we are out of time, and that concludes today’s briefing.  Thank you for your participation.  As a reminder, an English audio recording and a transcript in English and in Spanish of this hub call will be available on state.gov.  We will share that recording and those transcripts with all of the journalists who were part of this briefing today.  If you have any questions, you may contact the Miami Media Hub at MiamiHub@state.gov.  Thank you so much.  Until next time, goodbye.