Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to date on the most essential Texas news.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Margelis Tinoco Lopez arrived at the border at 4 a.m. Monday for her 1 p.m. immigration appointment with her husband and 13-year-old son. Standing on deck in freezing weather, Lopez received an email from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that made her heart sink: “Existing appointments scheduled through the CBP One app are not more valid. »
She burst into tears.
“I’m devastated,” she said, sitting in a chair in a migrant shelter in Juárez. “It feels like a feeling of instability, I feel vulnerable and scared.”
Tinoco Lopez is among thousands of migrants who hoped to enter the United States legally but saw their long-awaited appointments canceled shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday. The video of her crying on a bridge that connects El Paso to Juárez spread on social media, causing her to worry for her safety, she said.
On his first day back in office, Trump made good on his campaign promise to crack down on immigration, starting with banning the use of an app that lets migrants make appointments to seek asylum. The Biden administration had authorized 1,450 appointments per day at eight different ports of entry along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Nearly 300,000 people a day were trying to get an appointment, some waiting months before getting lucky. More than 936,500 people have received an appointment since January 2023, according to CBP.
Trump also issued an executive order to end citizenship rights and declared a state of emergency at the border to allow the federal government to send the military and National Guard to the border between the United States and Mexico. And he stopped refugee resettlement, a program through which thousands of people fleeing war and persecution entered the United States.
Migrants immediately felt the impact of Trump’s immigration agenda.
Tinoco Lopez and her family left Colombia six months ago in hopes of emigrating to the United States. She declined to speak in detail about the reasons for their departure, but said her eldest child was killed in his home country.
After arriving in Mexico City late last year, she downloaded the CBP One app on her cellphone to try to get an appointment to apply for asylum. On January 1, she finally got her appointment, so she and her family sold what little they had and bought one-way tickets to Juárez.
“We were so happy that we thought we could finally enter the United States,” said José Loaiza, Tinoco Lopez’s husband. “They gave us hope because they said they would accommodate us at our appointment at 11 a.m. But when we found out they wouldn’t let us in, it was just a overwhelming feeling that overcame us.”
Pastor Juan Fierro García, who runs a migrant shelter in suburban Juárez, said that before Monday, 12 migrants were staying at his shelter. But with mass appointment cancellations, he expects that number to increase.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” he said.
In the cafeteria of a Catholic church on the town square, Jesse Palmera, 31, ate beans, white bread and oatmeal. The Church provides free food and legal counseling to migrants seeking to enter the United States. Palmera, who left Venezuela with his younger brother in April to emigrate to the United States, had an appointment with immigration authorities on January 28.
His father, back in Venezuela, called him Monday afternoon to ask if the news that the Trump administration had revoked the appointments was true. Palmera said that’s how he found out his ability to enter legally was gone.
Jesse Palmera at the El Buen Pastor migrant shelter in Ciudad Juárez. Palmera’s asylum appointment, scheduled for Jan. 28, was canceled after the president’s inauguration Monday.
Credit:
Justin Hamel for the Texas Tribune
“When I got the appointment, I said to myself: ‘My parents and my sisters won’t have to suffer economically because I can finally work and send money home,'” he said. -he declared.
“My dad just told me, ‘If it’s God’s will, you can come into the United States,’” Palmera said.
Cristina Coronado, coordinator of the Migrant Ministry of the Missionary Society of Saint Columban, which offers services inside the Catholic church, said she has not seen more migrants coming to the center but that they have been bombarded with questions about what they can do. I don’t answer.
She said she advised people not to cross the border illegally or hire someone to smuggle them across.
“I hope there will be a moment of peace and clarity so that the governments of the two countries can discuss and find a solution,” she said. “I hope they are thinking about the people because unfortunately in recent years they have not thought about the needs of migrants.”
Almost instantly, Trump’s actions on immigration were challenged.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued to stop the birthright order and filed a request for a hearing on ending asylum appointments through CBP One, the app telephone.
“We are working hard to file more lawsuits,” said Cecillia Wang of the ACLU. “We come to court to defend your rights. »
Other prosecutions could follow.
Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, said the executive order ending birthright citizenship conflicts with the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship for all. She said the executive orders to close the border and reinstate “remain in Mexico” — a policy that forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases are pending — violate domestic and international laws. , and questioned the justification for declaring a national emergency. at the southern border because the number of illegal crossings is currently low.
“Just because the president is doing it doesn’t mean it’s legal,” Mukherjee said. “That doesn’t make it right.”
In South Texas, Andrea Rudnik worried that Trump’s executive orders could have a chilling effect on organizations like the one she co-founded, Team Brownsville, which provides humanitarian aid to migrants. The organization has already been targeted by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has launched investigations into several shelters and nonprofits that help migrants.
Margelis Tinoco Lopez, left, and her husband José Loaiza, right, at the El Buen Pastor migrant shelter in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on Tuesday after their asylum appointment was canceled. “We were so happy that we thought we were finally going to be able to enter the United States,” Loaiza said.
Credit:
Justin Hamel for the Texas Tribune
“We haven’t seen the worst yet,” Rudnik said, in a nod to the mass deportations promised by Trump. “There are just a lot of unknowns. We will continue to try to serve in the best way possible. The path forward is unclear at this stage.
Jennifer Babaie, director of legal services for the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, an El Paso nonprofit that provides legal services to migrants, said she would closely monitor how federal agencies try to implement implements the orders so that it can attempt to protect the people it represents. unjustified expulsion.
“These executive orders – regardless of your political party – completely disregard civil liberties,” Babaie said. “If a government could step in on day one and impose this many restrictions on civil liberties, what else would they be willing to do?
