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Friday, February 28, 2025

Thousands of migrants stranded as US entry appointments cancelled

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37 days ago
20250121
Colombian migrant Margelis Tinoco, 48, cries after her CBP One appointment was canceled at the Paso del Norte international bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on the border with the U.S., Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

Colombian migrant Margelis Tinoco, 48, cries after her CBP One appointment was canceled at the Paso del Norte international bridge in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on the border with the U.S., Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, the inauguration day of U.S. President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Christian Chavez)

Christian Chavez

They came from Haiti, Venezuela and around the world, pulling small rolling suit­cas­es crammed with cloth­ing and stuffed an­i­mals to oc­cu­py their chil­dren. They clutched cell­phones show­ing that af­ter months of wait­ing they had ap­point­ments — fi­nal­ly — to legal­ly en­ter the Unit­ed States.

Now out­side a se­ries of north Mex­i­co bor­der cross­ings where mazes of con­crete bar­ri­ers and thick fenc­ing even­tu­al­ly spill in­to the Unit­ed States, hope and ex­cite­ment evap­o­rat­ed in­to de­spair and dis­be­lief mo­ments af­ter Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump took of­fice. U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion an­nounced Mon­day that the CBP One app that worked as re­cent­ly as that morn­ing would no longer be used to ad­mit mi­grants af­ter fa­cil­i­tat­ing en­try for near­ly 1 mil­lion peo­ple since Jan­u­ary 2023.

Tens of thou­sands of ap­point­ments that were sched­uled in­to Feb­ru­ary were can­celled, ap­pli­cants were told.

That was it. There was no way to ap­peal, and no one to talk to.

In Ti­jua­na, where 400 peo­ple were ad­mit­ted dai­ly on the app at a bor­der cross­ing with San Diego, Maria Mer­ca­do had to work up the courage to check her phone.

Tears ran down her cheeks af­ter she fi­nal­ly looked. Her fam­i­ly’s ap­point­ment was for 1 p.m., four hours too late.

“We don’t know what we are go­ing to do,” she said, stand­ing with her fam­i­ly with­in view of the Unit­ed States.

She left Colom­bia decades ago af­ter it was over­run by drug car­tel vi­o­lence, head­ing to Ecuador. When car­tels be­sieged her new home­land, the fam­i­ly fled again, in June, this time to Mex­i­co, hop­ing to reach the U.S.

“I’m not ask­ing the world for any­thing — on­ly God. I’m ask­ing God to please let us get in,” she said.

Im­mi­grants around her hugged or cried qui­et­ly. Many stared ahead blankly, not know­ing what do. A near­by sign urged peo­ple to get the CBP One app. “This will fa­cil­i­tate your pro­cess­ing,” it said.

CBP One has been wild­ly pop­u­lar, es­pe­cial­ly with Venezue­lans, Cubans, Haitians and Mex­i­cans. Now, they were strand­ed at the U.S. bor­der or deep­er in Mex­i­co.

Jairol Po­lo, 38, tried get­ting an ap­point­ment for six months from Mex­i­co City be­fore snag­ging one for Wednes­day in Mata­moros, across from Brownsville, Texas. The Cuban man flew Mon­day from Mex­i­co’s cap­i­tal to learn at the Mata­moros-Brownsville bor­der cross­ing that his ap­point­ment was can­celed.

“Imag­ine how we feel,” he said de­ject­ed­ly while smok­ing a cig­a­rette.

Peo­ple with morn­ing ap­point­ments got through on sched­ule. An­drum Ro­man, a 28-year-old Venezue­lan, was in the last group to cross the bor­der with the CBP One in Ciu­dad Juarez, across from El Pa­so, Texas.

“We are a lit­tle safer now be­cause we are here,” he said just be­fore hand­ing over his doc­u­ments to U.S. au­thor­i­ties. “But you still don’t know what’s go­ing to hap­pen,” he said.

An­oth­er Venezue­lan, Rober Caruzi, en­tered El Pa­so right be­hind him. “I reached the bor­der twice and I was re­turned twice, but I didn’t lose hope,” he said.

By af­ter­noon, the app was down.

CBP One is ef­fec­tive­ly a lot­tery sys­tem that give ap­point­ments to 1,450 peo­ple a day at one of eight bor­der cross­ings. Peo­ple en­ter the U.S. on im­mi­gra­tion “pa­role,” a pres­i­den­tial au­thor­i­ty that for­mer Pres­i­dent Joe Biden used more than any oth­er pres­i­dent since it was in­tro­duced in 1952.

Its demise fol­lows Trump’s cam­paign promis­es, and will please its crit­ics, who see it as an over­ly gen­er­ous mag­net at­tract­ing peo­ple to Mex­i­co’s bor­der with the Unit­ed States.

De­spite a glitchy launch in Jan­u­ary 2023, it quick­ly be­came a crit­i­cal piece of the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion’s bor­der strat­e­gy to ex­pand le­gal path­ways while crack­ing down on asy­lum for peo­ple who en­ter il­le­gal­ly. Sup­port­ers say it brought or­der amid the tu­mult of il­le­gal cross­ings.

Many mi­grant shel­ters in Mex­i­co are now oc­cu­pied large­ly by peo­ple who tapped their phones dai­ly hop­ing for an ap­point­ment. U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion says about 280,000 peo­ple try dai­ly for the 1,450 slots.

The demise of CBP One will be cou­pled with the re­turn of “Re­main in Mex­i­co,” a rem­nant of Trump’s first term that forced about 70,000 asy­lum-seek­ers to wait in Mex­i­co for hear­ings in U.S. im­mi­gra­tion court.

Matthew Hu­dak, who re­tired last year as deputy chief of the Bor­der Pa­trol, said the demise of CBP One could en­cour­age peo­ple to cross il­le­gal­ly. To be ef­fec­tive, it must be cou­pled with some­thing like “Re­main in Mex­i­co,” he said.

“The mes­sage with CBP One be­ing shut down is ba­si­cal­ly, ‘Hey we’re not go­ing to al­low you to show up; the doors are not go­ing to be open.’ For that to be mean­ing­ful, there has to be some lev­el of con­se­quence if you by­pass any law­ful means and you’re do­ing it il­le­gal­ly,” he said.

News of CBP One’s abrupt end shocked mi­grants across Mex­i­co.

Juan An­drés Rincón Ramos, a 19-year-old Venezue­lan, cried with joy in ear­ly Jan­u­ary when he got an asy­lum ap­point­ment through CBP One af­ter months of try­ing. It was a lurch of hope af­ter five years liv­ing in Pe­ru and sev­en months in Mex­i­co strug­gling to reach the U.S., where his broth­er lives in Pitts­burgh.

In the makeshift Mex­i­co City mi­grant camp where he lives, the fan­ta­sy of a life he dreamed for him­self evap­o­rat­ed when he got the no­ti­fi­ca­tion that his ap­point­ment had been can­celled.

“It was a mo­ment of hope, but it didn’t last,” he said. “Every­one trust­ed in the Amer­i­can dream, but we were all wrong.”

Janet­sky re­port­ed from Mex­i­co City. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Tim Sul­li­van in Min­neapo­lis, El­liot Sp­a­gat in San Diego, Va­lerie Gon­za­lez in Mata­moros, Mex­i­co, and Mar­tin Sil­va in Ciu­dad Juarez, Mex­i­co, con­tributed.

TI­JUA­NA, Mex­i­co (AP) —

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