Victoria Meijia Garcia, 31, opened the CBP One app at 10 a.m. Monday as she did every day for the past several months, seeking an available appointment with an asylum official.
But today, the top of the familiar homepage blared a message that filled her with dismay.
“Existing appointments scheduled through CBP One are no longer valid,” the alert read.
In a move fulfilling one of now-President Donald Trump’s campaign promises, the Trump administration shuttered the use of CBP One, a President Joe Biden-era app meant to help process migrants seeking to apply for asylum in the U.S.
As the pomp and ceremony of the inauguration ceremony was broadcast for all to see, the Customs and Border Protection agency posted a notice on its website, informing users that the app was no longer available. It also said that existing appointments at the eight ports of entry across the Southwest had been canceled.
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“I had a very sad feeling, if you can imagine. I have been waiting for seven months asking for an appointment every day,” Garcia said. “It was the only option we had right now to go to the U.S. legally.”
The app, which was working as recently as earlier Monday, helped facilitate the admission of nearly 1 million asylum-seekers over the past two years.
Up to 1,450 people a day were given appointments at ports of entry to have their cases heard by asylum officials. Former president Joe Biden exercised his presidential authority to allow Individuals awaiting court hearings to reside in the United States.
Garcia and her family have been living in the La Divina Providencia migrant shelter in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora.
Her husband and two children fled from the Mexican state of Morelos, where they ran a business. Her family was threatened because they didn’t pay a tax placed on them by a local organized crime group.
“We couldn’t pay it,” she said. “We had to leave everything in Morelos.”
The family arrived in San Luis this past summer in the heat of June. The adjustment was hard at first, Garcia said, but the people working at the shelter have helped her family find a place in the border town.
“It was a drastic change for me and even more so for my kids. It took them longer to adjust to their new life here, you know, because we are living in the shelter,” she said, “Little by little, we have been adjusting here. My husband got a job here.”
Garcia and her family have found enough support in San Luis Río Colorado and have been reassured by the shelter that they will not have to leave due to the changes in federal border and immigration policy.
The family now waits for news from the White House about whether they will be able to claim asylum and make it across the border — and if they get the chance, how they will do so.
