Stranded at the border: Migrants are in limbo after Trump cancels border app appointments

Several migrants said they had recently arrived in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico after weeks of travel, only to find their CBP One appointments were cancelled.

When Jose Guillermo Cabrera arrived last weekend in Ciudad Juarez, a city along the US-Mexico border, he was full of hope. “I felt like every migrant, excited, after so much time waiting,” Cabrera, 33, told CNN. Ciudad Juarez was meant to be a city of passage for Cabrera and his family, a final stop before their long-awaited moment in front of US immigration authorities to request asylum. For several months, Cabrera had been applying for a shot at having his asylum claim heard by US authorities, while navigating around southern Mexico. In early January, confirmation came that he had finally secured an appointment. But a day before the appointment, a stroke of President Donald Trump’s pen shut down the US immigration processing app known as CBP One – and with it, Cabrera’s hopes. “So much time waiting, and now this surprise,” Cabrera said with a voice of defeat. “They shut off our dreams.” Until Trump’s inauguration on January 20, migrants seeking asylum from violence or persecution had the option to schedule an appointment at a legal US port of entry to make their case.