MEXICO CITY — One of the first local effects of President Trump’s sweeping immigration changes was visible Monday on the Mexican side of the U.S. port of entry. There, hundreds of despondent asylum seekers were stunned to learn that relief programs had been canceled. Asylum application process.
Early Monday morning, the day of President Trump’s inauguration, many people lined up at ports of entry for scheduled interviews with U.S. inspectors, only to be told their interviews had been canceled and the mobile phone app program known as CPB One had been discontinued. It was just that.
The collapse of CBP One has left tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Mexico without a legal path to enter the United States. Some have waited more than six months for CBP One interviews. There were many other people waiting in line for their turn.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” a distraught Cuban Ariana Armenta, 22, said from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande border bridge between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. .
She, her husband, Fidel Jimenez, 23, and their 1-month-old daughter, Carla, were interviewed by CBP One in El Paso on Monday. The family, along with other asylum seekers, arrived on the Mexican side of the bridge at 5 a.m. and their hopes were dashed when they learned their app had been cancelled.
“Maybe I’ll go back to Mexico City,” Jimenez mused, noting that he had been waiting in the Mexican capital for months for confirmation of his CBP One interview. “I really don’t know.”
Hundreds of others expressed their disappointment at crossings along the border. Some people cried and hugged each other after learning that CBP One had been cancelled.
CPB One was originally developed to prevent backups for travelers entering the country legally. By downloading it to your phone and entering your passport information, foreigners can use this application to smoothly pass through border crossings and airports.
In 2023, the Biden administration expanded its use of the app to bring order to the wave of asylum seekers arriving at the southwest border. Since then, CBP One has facilitated the entry of nearly 1 million people, primarily prospective asylum seekers, into the United States through ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. The majority were given notices to appear in U.S. immigration court for judgment in their cases.
The Biden administration praised the app as part of the solution to the border crisis. Immigrant advocates have complained that CBP One is prone to glitches and limits asylum rights to a lottery system.
President Trump and Republican leaders have accused the app of amounting to an “open borders” policy that encourages immigrants to head to the United States without proper criminal background checks.
The program’s cancellation was one of several immigration-related measures announced Monday. At his swearing-in ceremony in Washington, President Trump said he would declare a national emergency at the southern border and sign executive orders to combat illegal immigration.
In addition, President Trump launched a controversial program launched during his first administration and ended by Biden that forced asylum seekers arriving at the southwest border to wait for their U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico. He said he plans to reinstate the “remain in Mexico” policy. Critics say leaving Mexico is inhumane and a boon for drug cartels that prey on stranded migrants, but supporters argue it is an effective deterrent against false asylum claims. did.
Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City, Gabriela Minjares in Ciudad Juárez, and Gabriela M. Cordova in Tijuana contributed to this report.
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