Austin Bureau Correspondent
CIUDAD JUAREZ — Shortly after President Donald Trump took the oath of office Monday, Margelis Tinoco got the news she had been dreading all morning: Her afternoon appointment to enter the United States, made six months earlier, had been canceled.
Tears streamed down her face as she explained the situation to her 23-year-old daughter in Colombia as her husband and 13-year-old son stood nearby.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life from this point forward,” she told her daughter. “I have no job. I have nothing.”
Tinoco and dozens of other migrants had arrived at the entrance to the international bridge to El Paso at 4 a.m. Monday hoping to attend scheduled appointments made through CBP One. The mobile app, launched by the Biden administration, was a popular online lottery system that set appointments for about 1,450 migrants a day at eight border crossings. Using the app, 1 million people had entered the country legally with eligibility to work.
Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.
Or with:
By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Appointments had been honored for a group of migrants earlier Monday, before Trump — who had promised to end CBP One — delivered an inaugural address promising swift action to “repel the invasion of the country” and “complete the restoration of America.”
“As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said.
At the U.S.-Mexico border separating El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, anxious, scared and confused migrants and migrant advocates were awaiting details on Trump’s plan to begin mass deportations on his first day in office.
Evelin Vásquez, 29 — watching over her three children ranging from 3 to 11 years old — was among the migrants waiting at the Paso del Norte international bridge in Ciudad Juarez.
Vásquez also had a scheduled CBP One appointment, made two months ago, that was canceled Monday afternoon. The news came in an on-screen notification when she logged onto the CBP One app: “Existing appointments through CBP One are no longer valid.”
Vásquez said she and her children fled dangerous crime in Guatemala and hoped to join her husband who has been living in California for 15 months.
With 3-year-old son Liam playing with a pigeon and asking for crackers, Vásquez said she would remain at the border as long as possible but had no idea what to do next.
“I’m heartbroken,” she said in Spanish.
In El Paso, migrant advocates had been preparing for the worst as the beginning of Trump’s second term neared, said Dylan Corbett, executive director of El Paso-based Hope Border Institute, a faith-based nonprofit that provides shelter to migrants.
With the number of illegal crossings having dramatically decreased in recent months, due in part to strict asylum limits imposed by Biden, several migrant shelters had closed as demand declined. Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which had been sheltering migrants since September 2022, closed its shelter in October, according to Border Report.
Corbett said he feared the humanitarian and economic cost of Trump’s promise to deport millions of migrants who are in the country illegally.
“I don’t think we should be nonchalant,” Corbett said.
In Ciudad Juarez, Tinoco was contemplating what to do next. She was unprepared for the bitter cold snap, and the skin on her hands was dry and cracked from exposure to the 20-degree weather.
Lacking money for a hotel, she said her family was likely to try a migrant shelter in Mexico. Returning to Colombia was out of the question because of the danger from criminals, she said.
“I don’t want to go back to my country,” Tinoco said.
The journey to Ciudad Juarez, largely by foot, had taken months and included crossing the Darien Gap jungle in Panama en route to Mexico City. Mexico’s immigration officials caught them on a train headed to the U.S. border and sent the family to the Mexican state of Tabasco, along the border with Guatemala, where they started their journey anew.
Throughout 2024, Mexico sent migrants caught headed for the U.S. back to southern Mexico, hoping they might give up, the Associated Press reported in June 2024.
Tinoco and her family did not give up, but now they face a new roadblock.
“Everything that’s happened to us, it’s really sad,” she said.
Aarón is an Austin native who previously covered local government for The Kansas City Star and high school sports for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He is a University of Texas graduate, and Spanish is his first language.
