What is the CBP One app, and what does it do?

OPINION:

In Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, Sen. J.D. Vance brought up the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app called CBP One. 

He said: “So, there’s an application called the CBP One app where you can go [and] apply for asylum, or apply for parole, and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. … That is the facilitation of illegal immigration.”

As you can imagine, this statement caused apoplexy among mainstream media fact-checkers.

“No, the CBP One app does not give migrants legal status,” one source from ABC News declared.

The American Immigration Council chimed in on its website. “This app has become the only way that migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border … can preschedule appointments for processing,” it said.

Aside from the fact that Mr. Vance never said this app gave anyone immediate “legal status,” what does the app actually do? There is an easy way to answer this question: Download CBP One and see. It takes less than five minutes to do so, and here’s what you will find out.

First, you will be asked to declare if you are a “traveler” or a “broker/carrier/forwarder.” This is akin to asking if you are the smuggler or the person being smuggled. Essentially, the U.S. government wants to know if you are a leader of a trafficking ring or if you are being willingly trafficked. Either answer will do. Just fill in the blank.

Then, you’re told to provide basic biographical information, starting with your first and last name. On this question, as is the case for all others, you do not have to provide any proof that what you are saying is true. Your word is enough. No official documentation is required. For example, if your name is Abdul Rahman Yasin, you can say you are Bob Smith or Juan Valdez. No proof of your identity is required on this app.

Next, you are asked to identify your country of origin. Again, you can answer this question any way you see fit. If you are from Iran or China, you can say you’re from Mexico or Guatemala. It doesn’t matter. No verification of citizenship is asked for or expected on this form.

The next “requirement” on the application is that you provide a picture of yourself. Any photograph will do. It doesn’t have to be from a driver’s license or a passport. You can provide a picture of Gov. Tim Walz or actor Emilio Estevez. There is apparently no expectation that you provide a legally verified image of yourself.

Then, the app asks you for the address of your destination. You can answer that you don’t know. Just say that the city is unknown and you want to go somewhere in Oklahoma. That’s fine. The app does not disqualify you for any ambiguity here.

Now we come to gender — apparently, whoever created this app is a progressive and inclusive soul.

To this question, you can actually say “unknown.” If you do, all is well. The days of requiring you to specify whether you are male or female to enter the United States are well behind us.

Finally, you are asked to identify your port of entry. Just key in Eagles Pass Camino Real International Bridge here. That’s fine.

Again, this has all taken you less than five minutes. No identification was required. No passport. No driver’s license. No birth certificate. No documentation at all was expected. All you need to do now is wait for our current border czar to wave her magic wand, and you can join the other 10 million illegal immigrants now camped out on the front lawns of communities across our country such as Springfield, Ohio, and Charleroi, Pennsylvania.

Now ask yourself this: If you were a bad guy wishing to harm the United States, why wouldn’t you use this app? Why wouldn’t you have already used it and be living somewhere in this country waiting for your government (Iran, China, Russia, North Korea) to activate you?

The answer is, you’d be crazy not to. Why fly planes into buildings when you can take five minutes, punch in a few answers and cross our border under the cover of a “Kamala Harris magic wand”? Why wouldn’t you? Our own Department of Homeland Security says 660,000 other illegal immigrants with criminal records have already done so.

We will have lost our minds if we don’t stop this madness. America will cease to be safe, secure and sovereign if we don’t vote against this insanity on Nov. 5.

• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Daycare: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.