As panic sank in, two males strung ladders along with rope and positioned them over the metal border wall that separated Tijuana from Southern California.
“Hurry up, hurry hold shifting!” shouted the smugglers on the backside of the ladder. A younger lady from Zimbabwe stood on prime and regarded down with large eyes, hesitating earlier than taking her subsequent step.
On Monday, individuals ready to enter the US realized that President Trump had canceled all asylum appointments moments after taking workplace and deliberate to signal a number of government orders sealing the border.
But a minimum of one group nonetheless made a determined and threatening last-ditch effort to cross into the US.
One after the other, they ascended the wobbling construction, then slid down the opposite aspect. Those that made it over helped catch the ladies and youngsters. However one girl fell to the bottom on her method down and lay wailing in ache, grabbing her leg.
“We do that out of want, not as a result of we need to, and that’s it,” mentioned Carlos Porras, 39, from Peru, talking by the wall slats. He additionally harm his ankle whereas leaping and was limping.
Moments later, the group was approached by U.S. Border Patrol officers and brought away.
The scene revealed the desperation of migrants who on Monday realized that the border was now successfully closed. All had been left to course of the feelings, from bewilderment to despair.
“I really feel rage, I really feel unhappiness, I really feel all the things,” mentioned Katherine Romero, 36, a Venezuelan who had waited a yr in Mexico Metropolis for her Monday asylum appointment, working totally different jobs to avoid wasting up for the airplane ticket to Tijuana. “I simply can’t imagine it.”
In a sequence of orders he signed on Monday night, Mr. Trump moved to shut the nation’s borders to migrants, a part of a coverage barrage that included broadly blocking asylum seekers and a nationwide emergency declaration to deploy the army to the border.
His administration shut down the CBP One app simply minutes after Mr. Trump took the presidential oath on Monday. The app was utilized by the Biden administration to permit migrants to schedule appointments to achieve entry into the US however had been a goal of Republicans.
This system allowed 1,450 individuals a day to schedule a time to current themselves at a port of entry and request asylum. Greater than 900,000 entered the nation utilizing the app from its launch to the top of 2024.
In a migrant encampment in Mexico Metropolis on Monday, Cristian Morillo Romero, a Venezuelan who arrived in Mexico over a yr in the past, realized that Mr. Trump had ended the CBP One program — however he didn’t know what that meant for his Jan. 26 appointment in Calexico, Calif.
Then he opened his e-mail. There was a message in English with the topic line “CBP One Appointment Canceled” that defined that current appointments “are not legitimate.”
“I need to cry,” mentioned Mr. Morillo Romero, 37. When it lastly hit him later within the day, he did.
In Ciudad Juárez, throughout the border from El Paso, just one group of 100 individuals was allowed to cross into the US for his or her early morning appointments. Then, simply earlier than 11 a.m., Mexican border officers mentioned they obtained a notification from their American counterparts: No extra appointments had been being accepted.
“I’m in shock,” mentioned John Flores Bonalte, 36, a Venezuelan who by no means acquired to his 1 p.m. appointment. “It’s unfair. We had been ready to cross legally for a very long time. It’s been seven months ready in Mexico for this appointment.”
José Antonio Zuchite, 40, mentioned he left Honduras in September and waited 5 months in Mexico Metropolis earlier than coming to Ciudad Juárez over the weekend “with lots of hope.” His appointment on Monday was then canceled.
“I don’t have a spot to remain,” he mentioned, as his voice cracked. “I don’t have household or acquaintances right here. I’m on the road.”
On social media, migrants shared photos and movies of themselves, crying or with their heads of their palms, together with captions detailing how lengthy that they had been ready for appointments. Many mentioned that they had been biding their time in Mexico. Some mentioned that they had waited greater than a yr.
Lots of the movies featured the identical clip from a music that had additionally served lately as a form of anthem for individuals who lastly made it to the US.
Now many had been scrambling. In Tijuana, some individuals thought of staying whereas praying for some form of miracle. Others mentioned they had been fascinated by going to locations like Mexico Metropolis, the place there have been extra job alternatives. Some mentioned returning to their native international locations was out of the query as a result of they had been escaping violence or threats.
“Going again to Haiti means going again to demise,” mentioned Rose Joseph, 28, who left the nation’s violence-torn capital greater than two years in the past.
In her Monday information convention, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico strongly urged Mr. Trump’s workforce to exchange the CBP One app with one other mechanism so that individuals may once more apply for asylum in an orderly method.
“We wish one thing just like be established, as a result of it has had outcomes,” she mentioned.
This system was a key a part of the Biden administration’s effort to achieve management over migration by the southern border. U.S. officers on the time believed that by providing migrants an organized method to enter legally by an app, they might discourage unauthorized crossings.
Coupled with Mexico’s hardened restrictions, illegal crossings dropped markedly in 2024 and officers and analysts say the app was a major purpose.
“That was an enormous change,” mentioned Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior coverage analyst on the Migration Coverage Institute in Washington. “It supplied extra stability and a chance to have higher management on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border, as a result of it made the trail of migrants extra predictable.”
Critics, although, seen this system as a method to enable those that in any other case had no authorized pathway into the US to return and stay for years as their immigration circumstances languished within the courts.
“They made an software to facilitate unlawful immigration,” Vice President JD Vance mentioned in a publish on X final week. “It boggles the thoughts.”
And not using a substitute program, migrants stranded in Mexico possible face three eventualities: attempt to cross illegally into the US, return to their residence international locations or apply for asylum in Mexico.
“Possibly it’s not what many migrants would love, however it’s an alternate,” Mr. Ruiz Soto mentioned. Nonetheless, he added, that will not be of a lot assist for Mexicans looking for to flee their very own nation. “For them, I don’t see many choices.”
Francisco González, a pastor who oversees a community of migrant shelters, together with one in Ciudad Juárez, mentioned he anticipated migrants to remain longer at shelters as they deliberate their subsequent steps. He fearful, he mentioned, that individuals would possibly now assume extra danger by hiring smugglers or members of organized crime to cross the border illegally.
“They’re going to maintain making an attempt,” he mentioned.
Aline Corpus contributed reporting from Tijuana and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega and Annie Correal from Mexico Metropolis.
