They came from Haiti, Venezuela and around the world, pulling small rolling suitcases crammed with clothing and stuffed animals to occupy their children. They clutched cellphones showing that after months of waiting they had appointments — finally — to legally enter the United States.
Now outside a series of north Mexico border crossings where mazes of concrete barriers and thick fencing eventually spill into the U.S., hope and excitement evaporated into despair and disbelief moments after President Donald Trump took office. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced Monday that the CBP One app that worked as recently as that morning would no longer be used to admit migrants after facilitating entry for nearly 1 million people since January 2023.
Tens of thousands of appointments that were scheduled into February were canceled, applicants were told.
That was it. There was no way to appeal, and no one to talk to.
In Tijuana, where 400 people were admitted daily on the app at a border crossing with San Diego, Maria Mercado had to work up the courage to check her phone.
Tears ran down her cheeks after she finally looked. Her family’s appointment was for 1 p.m., four hours too late.
“We don’t know what we are going to do,” she said, standing with her family within view of the U.S.
She left Colombia decades ago after it was overrun by drug cartel violence, heading to Ecuador. When cartels besieged her new homeland, the family fled again, in June, this time to Mexico, hoping to reach the U.S.
“I’m not asking the world for anything — only God. I’m asking God to please let us get in," she said.
Immigrants around her hugged or cried quietly. Many stared ahead blankly, not knowing what do. A nearby sign urged people to get the CBP One app. “This will facilitate your processing,” it said.
CBP One has been wildly popular, especially with Venezuelans, Cubans, Haitians and Mexicans. Now, they were stranded at the U.S. border or deeper in Mexico.
The mobile phone app is effectively a lottery system that give appointments to 1,450 people a day at one of eight border crossings. People enter the U.S. on immigration “parole,” a presidential authority that former President Joe Biden used more than any other president since it was introduced in 1952.
Its demise follows Trump’s campaign promises, and will please its critics, who see it as an overly generous magnet attracting people to U.S-Mexico border.
Despite a glitchy launch in January 2023, it quickly became a critical piece of the Biden administration’s border strategy to expand legal pathways while cracking down on asylum for people who enter illegally. Supporters say it brought order amid the tumult of illegal crossings.
Many migrant shelters in Mexico are now occupied largely by people who tapped their phones daily hoping for an appointment. U.S. Customs and Border Protection says about 280,000 people try daily for the 1,450 slots.
News of CBP One's abrupt end shocked migrants across Mexico.
Tuesday morning dozens of people with cancelled CBP One appointments gathered on the Tijuana side of the border hoping for answers.
Shakira Chaparro, a Venezuelan asylum seeker, spent all of her money traveling to Tijuana. She crossed the dangerous Darien Gap jungle with two brothers and her 7-year-old daughter.
"We have nowhere to stay," she said.
Chaparro doesn't feel safe in Mexico. She said she was briefly kidnapped in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Now she has to tell her daughter that she may never see her father again.
"How do you explain that to a 7-year-old," Chaparro said.
Local migrant shelter operators fear that the Trump administration's decision to abruptly terminate CBP One without offering other legal asylum pathways will have unintended consequences.
"My biggest concern is that migrants will decide to cross illegally into the United States because they have no other options," said Jose Maria Garcia Lara, director of the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter.
The demise of CBP One will be coupled with the return of “Remain in Mexico,” a remnant of Trump's first term that forced about 70,000 asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court.
Matthew Hudak, who retired last year as deputy chief of the Border Patrol, said the demise of CBP One could encourage people to cross illegally. To be effective, it must be coupled with something like “Remain in Mexico," he said.
“The message with CBP One being shut down is basically, ‘Hey we’re not going to allow you to show up; the doors are not going to be open.’ For that to be meaningful, there has to be some level of consequence if you bypass any lawful means and you’re doing it illegally,” he said.
