MEXICO CITY — One of the first concrete effects of President Trump's sweeping immigration overhauls was visible Monday on the Mexican side of U.S. ports of entry, where hundreds of heartbroken asylum seekers were stunned to learn of the cancellation of a program designed to make it easier to apply for asylum.
Many lined up at ports of entry early Monday, the day of Trump's inauguration, for scheduled interviews with U.S. inspectors – only to learn that their interviews had been canceled and that the cell phone application program known as CPB One had ended.
The sinking of CBP One leaves tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Mexico with no way to legally enter the United States. Some have waited six months or longer for their CBP One interviews. Many others stood in line waiting for appointments.
“We don't know what we're going to do,” said a distraught Aliana Armenta, 22, from Cuba, speaking from the Mexican side of the border bridge that spans the Rio Grande between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso.
She, her husband Fidel Jiménez, 23, and the couple's 1-month-old daughter Karla had a CBP One interview scheduled for Monday in El Paso. The family arrived on the Mexican side of the bridge at 5 a.m. and, along with other would-be asylum seekers, learned that the app had been shut down and their hopes had been dashed.
“Maybe we’ll go back to Mexico City,” Jiménez mused, noting that they had waited months in the Mexican capital for confirmation of their CBP One interview. “We really don’t know.”
Hundreds of others expressed their disappointments at border crossings. Some cried and hugged each other when they learned of CBP One's cancellation.
CPB One was originally designed to prevent backups of travelers entering the country legally. After downloading it to their mobile phone and entering their passport details, foreign nationals could use the application to ease their way through border crossings and airports.
In 2023, the Biden administration expanded use of the app to bring order to the crush of asylum seekers arriving at the southwest border. CBP One has since facilitated the entry of nearly a million people, mostly potential asylum seekers, into the United States through ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. The vast majority have been ordered to appear in U.S. immigration courts to have their cases decided.
The Biden administration praised the app as part of the solution to the border crisis. Immigration advocates complained that CBP One was vulnerable to disruption and reduced the right to asylum to a lottery.
Trump and Republican leaders condemned the app, saying it amounted to an “open borders” policy that encouraged more migrants to travel to the United States without being properly screened for criminal records.
The cancellation of the program was one of several immigration-related actions announced Monday. At his swearing-in ceremony in Washington, Trump said he would declare a national emergency at the southern border and sign executive orders to combat illegal immigration.
In addition, Trump said he plans to reinstate “Remain” in Mexico, a controversial program created in his first administration and ended by Biden that forced asylum seekers arriving at the southwest border to wait on the deadlines U.S. immigration court in Mexico. Critics called the stay in Mexico inhumane and a boon to drug cartels that exploit stranded migrants, but supporters said it was an effective deterrent against bogus asylum claims.
Special correspondents Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City, Gabriela Minjares in Ciudad Juárez and Gabriela M. Cordova in Tijuana contributed to this report.