Migrants’ appointments canceled with CBP One shutdown

Good Morning, I’m Debbie Cruz. It’s Wednesday. January 22nd.

Migrants at the border are stranded after the C-B-P One app shuts down.

More on that next. But first, let’s do the headlines.

CalFire and S-D-G-&-E have been on high alert with gusty Santa Ana winds and very dry conditions.

Several small fires in the last couple of days prompted evacuation orders for some county residents. And we’re still not out of danger – a red flag alert will remain in place through 8 p.m. Thursday.

S-D-G-&-E says it will continue with public safety power shutoffs. 68-thousand customers could be affected in the coming days.

CalFresh recipients can temporarily use their E-B-T card to purchase hot and prepared food.

Alberto Banuelos from the county’s Health and Human Services agency says the decision was made to support people affected by wildfires, especially those with L-A connections.

“Because of evacuation, or as they, you know, now await their homes to be able to access or go back into their homes, so, because of that, now the entire county of San Diego, all participants of CalFresh benefits can now access hot food.”

The temporary change allows any E-B-T recipient in the county to purchase hot food from stores that accept E-B-T.

This option for E-B-T recipients will be available through February 8th. After that, recipients’ typical E-B-T options will resume.  

The P-G-A Tour's Farmers Insurance Open tees off today (Wednesday) in La Jolla.

For over 70 years, San Diego has hosted a P-G-A tour event.

The tournament at Torrey Pines will run through Saturday.

This is the final event of the first stretch of the season. Spots in the A-T-&-T Pebble Beach Pro-Am are on the line.

From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now. Stay with me for more of the local news you need.

In one of the first acts of his presidency, Donald Trump cut off access to the CBP One program for asylum in the United States.

Investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis spoke with migrants who had traveled to Tijuana with high hopes, only to see them dashed.

Ahilin followed the rules. The asylum seeker from Venezuela used the CBP One mobile app to schedule an appointment to enter the U.S. legally. Then the rules changed. On Tuesday, at the Tijuana border crossing, Ahilin told KPBS she sacrificed everything to be there. “Aquí hay mucha gente que hizo mucho sacrificio. Vendió su casa, sus cosas y quedaron en la nada.” She’s among thousands of migrants who are now stranded along the border. She says some people sold their homes, their belongings, and left everything behind. All for a shot at asylum in the U.S. Ahilin says it feels like she’s being punished for someone else’s crimes. “Ese es el punto que quiero darle entender. Hay mucha gente que pasó ilegalmente y están allá adentro ilegalmente quizás hacienda su desmadre. Por eso esta asi por uno. Pero por uno no Podemos pagar todos.” There are a lot of people who crossed the border illegally – she says – they go into the U.S. and cause a lot of trouble. But she says innocent people are paying the price. Other migrants told KPBS on Tuesday that they don’t have any money left and they don’t know where they’ll sleep. One thing they do know, going home is not an option. Gustavo Solis, KPBS News.

As President Donald Trump Monday swore to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, and usher in a golden age of America, San Diegans watched.

Public Matters reporter Amita Sharma spoke to four local voters: independent Allan Hoving, and two republicans, Liliana Armenta and Eddie Rosenfeld.

A fourth panelist - a democrat – had to cancel because of a family emergency.

Liliana, the cost of housing, the cost of groceries, high electricity prices are crushing San Diegan's wallets. Homelessness is on the rise. President Trump said Monday that he wanted to focus on the economy. Are there any signs, any steps that you're looking for the president to take that will tell you that, oh, he's really gonna deliver on reducing the cost of living for Americans? Yes. Something I'm looking for president Trump to do is, to reduce taxes, if not eliminate a lot of the taxes that we pay for would be, something that would help everybody. Also, during his speech he did focus on everything being in america. And i’m really hoping the farmers, the water supply, drilling everything, just bringing money into our own economy will drop the prices overall. Eddie, so Trump declared a state of emergency at the southern border and reiterated yesterday his plan to undertake mass deportations of undocumented people which could affect 100 of thousands of people in San Diego who work in agriculture, in construction, in our restaurants, in our schools and in our homes. How do you view that plan? My family is Mexican. They come from Mexico City, and I'm 1st generation here. But I do understand that there's a crisis right now at both borders. And so I fully support anything that is going to document citizens coming in. It's not necessarily about, you know, pushing everyone out. So, Allan, the 3 richest men in the country, if not the world, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, were given prime seats at Monday's inauguration. What, if anything, does that signal to you? Well, you know, it's been said that, it's a sign of an oligarchy, taking control in the country. Personally, I think that it was important for those people and everyone else in the room to be witnesses to the swearing in. So Musk, later in the day, gave a signal which is being widely interpreted as a Heil Hitler sign not just once but twice. What's your response to that? That's something that that they're gonna really have to be, asking him in the coming days and see if they're satisfied with the answer. Also, he's a genius billionaire with Asperger's. This guy isn't like, I'm sure that that signal wasn't intended to be a hail Hitler. I think he was just excited. Not only that but also, the excitement of the moment and the 3 texts being there, I the way I saw it was just the unity of, America. So Eduardo, there is among many Americans this deep apprehension that democracy might be in its twilight once the Trump administration takes over. He has threatened to jail his opponents and members of the media and suspend the constitution. What are your thoughts about whether he will do this and whether he hit anything that suggested that in the speech Monday? Yeah. That sounds very Russian. But, I also feel like Trump likes to have fun when he talks, and he likes to get numbers. I don't see it as as something that is you know, he's not he's not gonna be able to execute on that unlawfully. So Liliana, based on what you heard in President Trump's inaugural speech Monday, how do you think the next chapter of the American story will unfold? I think when he mentioned, that he felt after the assassination attempt, that god spared his life, to help our country, I I truly believe he he means it. And he with a lot of the executive orders he he signed, it will push a lot of, it will push our our laws, our constitution, but I think at the same time, we need some changes. Well, thank you to all three of you for your time and your comments today. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.

A community group in Kensington is trying to raise fire-risk awareness among their neighbors. Reporter Melissa Mae met with members of the group who say they don't want to be the next Pacific Palisades.

The Kensington Fire Safe Council is a group of Kensington residents who promote fire safety in their community. Amy Dyson is a co-chair. “Kensington is a high fire severity zone and we're surrounded by canyons, very vulnerable.” The group gives presentations covering everything from fire insurance to clearing defensible space. Now, they have a new focus… Illegal homeless encampments. “The ignition source that these encampments, result in, because they are cooking with open flame and and propane tanks and that kind of stuff, and keeping warm at night with propane.” Mike Baldwin volunteers with the council. He says he reports encampments to the city of San Diego through the get it done app and encourages others to do the same. Melissa Mae KPBS News.

Coming up, communities share how they are still rebuilding, one year after the floods in San Diego. We’ll have their stories and more, just after the break.

The majority of San Diegans displaced by last year’s floods did not receive housing commission recovery funds.

For the one year anniversary, reporter Katie Hyson checks in with one survivor slipping through the cracks.

“It's been the longest and fastest year at the same time.” Jessica Calix escaped the floods with her son Chago and their ball python Princess Peach. She lost everything else in her Southcrest home. “It really pushes you to your breaking point. You know, you're always feeling like you're just one setback away from everything falling apart.” A year later, they live in an RV. She never qualified for help from the housing commission because she left the county’s hotel program early. The floods displaced more than 12-hundred people. Less than half of them have received money from the commission. Assistance is now in Phase 2. Families who applied and weren’t eligible for phase one are now being considered. But that still excludes people like Calix, who never applied because they knew they weren’t eligible. “It's just all very dehumanizing, you know. And you have to fight so hard every day to tell yourself that you deserve better.” She still meets weekly with flood survivors. They talk about how the city could improve its disaster response. “The amount of work that's still left to do is just, it’s crazy.” Katie Hyson, KPBS News.

Today, we’re recognizing the one year mark since the catastrophic flooding in San Diego. In the neighborhoods surrounding Chollas Creek, many victims were low income and some lacked flood insurance.

Metro reporter Andrew Bowen gives us an update on how the creek — and the surrounding homes — look today.

“So this room's my room. I shared it with my cousin. So this would be, like, my side of the bed, and then he would get that side.” Ashley Manzano walks me through her grandmother's home on Beta Street in Southcrest, where she was living the day the floods came one year ago. The house has been stripped down to the studs. “The home itself was just a safe haven for, you know, me and my family. So everyone was welcomed here. You know, it is my grandmother's house. So if ever anybody needed a place to stay, we would, you know, just come.” January 22nd, last year is seared into Manzano's memory. The rains came fast and heavy. When water started coming up through the floorboards, she knew she had to leave. But the streets were impassable, so she fled to the neighbor's roof with her grandma, who's now 90 and has early stage dementia. “You know, as I'm speaking to you I'm kinda blocking some out, so my PTSD doesn't really take control over it, my mental state. You know? I do work with the therapist over the flood as well. So I can only speak so much details before, you know, it plays more of a role or it takes more of a toll in my head.” The family's financial and health struggles have made for a slow recovery. They're grateful for the volunteers who have pitched in to get the house this far. But the family needs another $189,000 to fully restore it. They've filed a claim against the city of San Diego for failing to maintain the storm drains. But it will likely be years before their case gets resolved. “It flooded so quickly for a variety of reasons. One is that it has an outdated and inadequate storm drain system.” Leslie Reynolds is executive director of Groundwork San Diego, a nonprofit that advocates for better stormwater infrastructure. We meet a block away from Manzano's house on the banks of Chollas Creek. “And then it happened because the channel was constricted by overgrowth of vegetation and did not allow for the water to flow through.” Today this section of the creek is mostly clear. But there's a lot more work the city has to do to prevent another flooding catastrophe. Reynolds says the city of San Diego is planning to upgrade the storm drains here, which she says is critical and long overdue. It's also planning a number of bioswales — depressions in the ground that can fill up with rainwater and relieve some of the pressure on the larger storm drain system. “We're very excited about turning this whole area into a sort of pilot project for nature-based water management and multiple benefits. If you're gonna work on flooding in a community, you're gonna have to work on heat and air and green spaces and all the things these residents are gonna need as the climate worsens.” Planning infrastructure improvements is one thing. But convincing voters to pay for them in the form of higher taxes is far from guaranteed. “The city is a billion and a half dollars short of stormwater infrastructure funding. And we're very hopeful that we'll get a ballot initiative in 2026. Our residents even supported a sales tax increase very generously — unlike some other communities in the city — to try to build infrastructure for these kinds of assets. So I'm very hopeful we'll get a ballot initiative to make up that gap.” Ashley Manzano's home on Beta Street was once a source of stability throughout her family's struggles. Without it, an uncle who was living in the home is now on the streets. She and her grandmother are still couchsurfing. “And what stresses me out is a little more, it's just I kind of feel like we've been forgotten. I know we have the LA fires occurring and I'm grateful that a lot of people have helped them. But I hope they don't forget about us, you know, because we kinda were a little bit forgotten even when the flood occurred. So, I just hope people, like, help us because we still need a lot of help as well. I mean, as you can see, my home — it still needs a lot of work.” Andrew Bowen, KPBS news.

A floral business in Mission Valley was one of many that flooded. Reporter John Carroll went back there to see how things are going now.

Native Poppy sits at the end of a row of warehouse-type businesses on Mission Gorge Road in Mission Valley.  Last January 22nd, a nearby creek burst out of its banks… flooding every building in its path. “It was three and a half feet in a minute.” Natalie Gill arrived about a half hour after the floodwaters did… to find a devastating sight. “There was still two and a half feet of standing water in here.” For a flower business, the flood couldn’t have happened at a worse time. “We need to operate for Valentine’s Day. So it was all hands on deck to just kind of clean and get the supplies just needed for Valentine’s Day.” Gill says with help from their loyal customer base, they made it through. She says she looked around for another place to do business, away from the water. But sky-high rents made that impossible. So, they’re staying put, with their merchandise up higher off the floor than before. She says they’ll be as ready as they can be if, she says “when” the waters come again. Through it all, Gill says she’s staying positive for herself, and her employees. “I wanna do right by my team, so I’m going to say it’s gonna be great. We’re delivering smiles for miles.” (laughter) John Carroll, KPBS News.

That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Debbie Cruz. Thanks for listening and have a great Wednesday.