Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told Newsmax on Tuesday that he warned his Democrat colleagues that the CBP One app would someday help President Donald Trump track down illegal immigrants and deport them.
Lankford joined "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE" on the day the Trump administration revoked legal status for the 900,000-plus migrants who enrolled since the Biden administration began using the app as a tool for illegal migrants to schedule asylum claims in January 2023.
"This is something I kept ringing the bell on for years to the Biden administration, telling my Democratic colleagues, you've set up an app that's literally going to allow President Trump to be able to grab all these folks up and identify exactly where they are," Lankford said.
It was also reported Tuesday that the Trump administration plans to fine migrants facing deportation orders $998 per day if they fail to leave the U.S. That includes those who were paroled by the Biden administration.
"The parole was not legal; what President Trump is doing is legal and the left is going crazy that President Trump is going to follow the law and President [Joe] Biden did not," Lankford said.
"Many of these folks have lived in the shadows — many of them for years and years and years. There's no way to be able to track that.
"The Biden administration would never release how many they actually paroled into the country — which, by the way, parole is not a legal status. It's just a 'we're not going to arrest you' status," he added.
Lankford also addressed the outrage from the left about something that has the word "illegal" in it.
Republicans "want to be able to follow the laws of the land, not ignore the laws of the land," he said.
"That doesn't seem crazy. We're not opposed to legal immigration. ... I just don't like anything that begins with the word 'illegal.'
"Just generally, across the board, if it's illegal, let's just say that's a bad idea," he said.
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