CBP One — This is an application that, when accompanied, allows you to sign up to apply for asylum at the US border. Citizens of any country who are physically in Mexico can download the CBP One app to their phone and fill out a biographical form with information about themselves and their family. Once registered, you are required to check the calendar daily and the dates available to schedule an appointment with an immigration officer at your selected U.S. border crossing. Having received the date and time of the meeting in the application, at the specified time you need to come to the border, where the American immigration officer or border guard will accept the applicant’s papers, review them and ask several questions.
Assignment to CBP One — This is currently the only legal way to enter the United States without a visa, which also greatly simplifies the application for asylum. But the application is geo-based. To use it, you must not only first get to Mexico, but also be located close to certain crossing points on the US border or in large populated areas in central Mexico.
New dates for crossing the US border are added to the application every day at 9:00 am New York time. Now the waiting time for an appointment to arrive at the crossing point reaches at least 3 months. If you do not diligently check for new dates, the waiting time can last indefinitely. During this entire waiting period, you must remain in Mexico, even if your legal status in the country has already ended.
Mexico Immigration has repeatedly emphasized that it has no relationship with CBP One, and that filing for entry into the United States through the CBP One application does not imply the issuance of an immigration document or residence permit by the Government of Mexico. In effect, this means that Mexico is not obligated to facilitate the entry into its territory or stay of those who plan to cross into the United States with the help of CBP One, or even vice versa. Upon entry to Mexico don't report to the Mexican immigration officer that you are planning to enter the United States, otherwise you will most likely receive an entry refusal. Stick to the version that you came to Mexico as a traveler, from rest or from sightseeing.
When entering Mexico, your passport will be stamped with the permitted period of stay. Let's say, if you receive a maximum period of 180 days to stay in Mexico, you still have the right to get the date of transition to CBP One and get to the USA. But very often upon entry they give a much shorter permitted period of stay, several weeks or months. This period cannot be extended in any way. At the end of this period, you must leave the country or become an illegal immigrant.
You can get active and explore the sights of Mexico before your permitted stay expires. You have the opportunity to live in any state of Mexico without living on the beach or island hopping until your permitted stay expires. Then we suggest that you move closer to the city from where you plan to enter the United States, and stay there until the transfer date.
By and large, the lack of legal status for staying in Mexico does not pose any particular problems. Citizens of Ukraine, Russia or Belarus will not be deported from Mexico until the end of the war in Ukraine. When detained, they are released very quickly, and the detention itself costs them only time and nerves. Citizens of other countries whose legal period of stay in Mexico has expired have the opportunity to be placed in a migration station upon arrest. But Mexico does not have the money to deport them, so in the end they are also released under an obligation to leave the country within 20 days. In case of repeated detention and failure to fulfill this obligation, they have the right to be kept at the migration station until they buy a ticket from Mexico, after which they are taken to the airport, or until they pay a bribe, and a considerable one. Detentions occur during migration checks at airports and on highways. For this reason, if you have expired your permitted period of stay in Mexico, in other words, your legal status, try to stay in the border region and not move around the country, do not use buses and planes unless absolutely necessary, and generally be less visible. In particular, Uzbeks who end up in Tijuana to wait here for an appointment at CBP One, the first thing they do is order prostitutes, and then wonder where local law enforcement agencies found out about their arrival and came to check.
On the Internet you can find a variety of suggestions on how to get to the American border after your legal status in Mexico has ended. All these proposals look like extreme quests. Try to get to the border before, not after.
Do not tell immigration or National Guard officials in Mexico that you are waiting or that you already have an appointment with CBP One. This will not only not justify your stay in Mexico, but will also attract attention on their part to verify your identity and legality of stay, and sometimes give rise to financial blackmail. By the way, in border areas the police also check the status of migrants, which is illegal.