President Biden’s Department of Homeland Security is expanding the number of immigrants who can apply for asylum online via a new app, turning tens of thousands of would-be illegal immigrants into de facto legal ones instantly.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has increased the number of appointments available online by nearly 50 percent in the last six weeks. The agency said there are now 1,450 appointments available daily at ports of entry along the American border with Mexico, compared to 1,000 on May 12. The figure amounts to more than 43,500 migrants being admitted into the United States every month. 

The online application process, dubbed CBP One, was launched March 1 in an effort to stem the tide of migrants who had overwhelmed law enforcement efforts at the border. Officials at the agency described the app as “a key component of DHS efforts to incentivize migrants to use lawful processes and disincentivize attempts at irregular or unlawful entry to the United States,” the department said in a statement announcing the increase.

“Because the app provides a direct system to request appointments, it reduces the potential for smugglers or others to exploit migrants,” the statement said.

In May, the latest full month for which figures are available, immigration authorities apprehended some 169,000 migrants attempting to enter the country without permission. More than half of those encounters, the agency said, occurred before the pandemic-era rules allowing for immediate expulsion of undocumented immigrants, known as Title 42, expired on May 12. The total number for the month was an 8 percent decline from April and about three-fourths of the number that were apprehended in May 2022.

Since May 12, the agency said, nearly 50,000 immigrants have been interviewed by authorities at the border after making appointments on the CBP One app. While the Department of Homeland Security does not release data on how many of those applications for asylum are approved, recent reports suggest that the overwhelming majority of applicants are approved and either served with notices to appear in court at a later date or paroled into the United States.

Some Republicans in Congress have taken to calling the CBP One app a “concierge service for illegal immigrants.” Many critics of the president’s policies have asserted that Mr. Biden is merely pushing people who would be entering the country illegally to the appointment system to make it appear that border crossings are down. 

“Since January 2023, Secretary Mayorkas has been engaging in a shell game at the expense of the American people by painting otherwise unlawful border crossings as legal entries,” the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Mark Green, says. “The Biden administration’s abuse of the CBP One app at ports of entry is just a new iteration of catch-and-release … it’s clear that Secretary Mayorkas never had a plan to secure our border or end this crisis; he just had a scheme to hide it in plain sight.”