As panic spread, two men tied a ladder to the top of the steel border wall separating Tijuana and Southern California.
“Hurry, move quickly!'' shouted the smugglers at the bottom of the ladder. A young girl from Zimbabwe stood at the top, her eyes wide, and she hesitated before taking her next step.
On Monday, people waiting to enter the United States learned that President Trump plans to sign several executive orders immediately after taking office, canceling all asylum applications and closing the border.
But at least one group was still making a desperate and dangerous last-ditch effort to cross into the United States.
One by one, they climbed up the rickety structure and slid down to the other side. Those who managed to escape helped capture the women and children. However, one woman fell to the ground on the way down, clutching her leg and crying out in pain.
Carlos Porras, 39, from Peru, spoke through the wallboard. He also hurt his ankle while jumping and was limping.
Shortly afterward, the group was approached by U.S. Border Patrol agents and taken away.
The scene revealed the despair of migrants who learned the border was effectively closed on Monday. Everyone had no choice but to process emotions ranging from bewilderment to despair.
“I feel angry, I feel sad, I feel everything,” said Catherine Romero, 36, a Venezuelan. He had been waiting a year in Mexico City for Monday's asylum appointment, holding down two jobs to save up for a flight to Tijuana. “I can't believe it.”
In a series of orders signed Monday night, Mr. Trump moved to close the border to migrants, a policy crackdown that includes broad cutoffs to asylum seekers and a declaration of a national emergency that deploys military to the border. It was part of.
Just minutes after Trump took the presidential oath on Monday, the administration shut down the CBP One app. The app, which was being used by the Biden administration to help immigrants book appointments to enter the United States, had been targeted by Republicans.
The program allowed 1,450 people to schedule a time each day to report to a port of entry and apply for asylum. From the launch of the service until the end of 2024, more than 900,000 people have entered the country using this app.
At a migrant camp in Mexico City on Monday, Cristian Morillo Romero, a Venezuelan national who arrived in Mexico more than a year ago, learned that Trump had ended the CBP One program, but only after the president announced in January. I didn't know what it meant. Appointed in Calexico, California, on the 26th.
Then he opened the email. The message was in English with the subject line “CBP One Appointment Canceled” and explained that the existing appointment was “no longer valid.”
“I want to cry,” said Morillo Romero, 37. Later that day, when he finally felt like crying, he started crying.
Across the border from El Paso in Ciudad Juárez, only one group of 100 people was allowed into the United States for an early morning appointment. Then, just before 11 a.m., Mexican border officials said they received notice from the U.S. side that “no further appointments will be accepted.”
“I'm shocked,” said John Flores Bonarte, 36, a Venezuelan who did not show up for his 1 p.m. appointment. “It's not fair. We've been waiting for a long time to cross legally. We've been waiting in Mexico for seven months for this promise.”
Jose Antonio Zusite, 40, said he left Honduras in September and waited five months in Mexico City before coming to Ciudad Juárez over the weekend “with great hopes.” His appointment for Monday was then canceled.
“I don't have a place to stay,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I have no family or friends here. I'm on the street.”
Migrants shared images and videos on social media of themselves crying and holding their heads, along with captions detailing the length of their waits for appointments. Many said they were looking forward to spending time in Mexico. Some said they had waited more than a year.
Many of the videos featured the same clip from the song, which in recent years also served as a kind of ode to those who eventually made it to the United States.
Now a lot of people were scrambling. In Tijuana, some were considering staying there, praying for some kind of miracle. Some said they were considering moving to places like Mexico City, where there are more job opportunities. For some, returning to their home country to escape violence and intimidation was out of the question.
“Going back to Haiti means going back to death,” said Rose Joseph, 28, who left Haiti's violence-ravaged capital more than two years ago.
At a press conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum urged Trump's team to replace the CBP One app with an alternative mechanism so people can once again apply for asylum in an orderly manner.
“We are seeing results, so we hope something similar will be established,” she said.
The plan was a key part of the Biden administration's efforts to control migrants crossing the southern border. U.S. officials at the time believed they could thwart unauthorized entry by giving immigrants a systematic way to enter the country legally through the app.
Coupled with Mexico's tightening of regulations, the number of illegal immigrants dropped significantly in 2024, and officials and analysts say the app was a big reason why.
“This was a big change,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. “This has created an opportunity for greater stability and better control on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, as the path of migration has become more predictable.”
But critics see the program as a way for people without a legal route to the U.S. to enter the country and stay for years while their immigration cases are pending in court. It was considered.
“They filed the application to facilitate illegal immigration,” Vice President J.D. Vance said in a post to X last week. “It confuses the mind.”
Without an alternative program, migrants stranded in Mexico are likely to face three scenarios: try to enter the United States illegally, return to their home country, or seek asylum in Mexico.
“It's probably not what many immigrants want, but it's an alternative,” Luis Soto said. Still, he added, that doesn't help much for Mexicans trying to flee their country. “For them, I don’t have a lot of options.”
Francisco González, a pastor who oversees a network of migrant shelters including the Ciudad Juárez shelter, said he expected migrants to stay in shelters longer as they plan their next steps. He said he was concerned that people would take greater risks by hiring smugglers and members of organized crime to cross the border illegally.
“They're going to keep trying,” he said.
align corpus Contributing reports from Tijuana, Emiliano Rodriguez Mega and Annie Correal Born in Mexico City.
