MEXICO CITY — Tens of thousands of migrants from Venezuela, Guatemala and other countries are stranded in Mexico after the Trump administration shut down the asylum system at the border, increasing the pressure on a nation bracing for a wave of Mexican deportees.
Frustration had already been growing in Mexico over the number of migrants camped out in cities far from the border, trying to secure American asylum appointments through a mobile app run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In Mexico City, some migrants have built tent cities and slept on the streets. In a country long sympathetic to migrants, neighbors started protesting.
Now, those migrants have no clear path to the United States.
“Everyone is in limbo, desperate, trying to figure out what to do,” said the Rev. Juan Luis Carbajal, who runs the Archangel Raphael migrant shelter in southern Mexico City.
The Mexican government has no data on how many foreigners have been waiting within its borders for their U.S. appointments. Reuters and the Associated Press, citing CBP officials, have reported that each day around 280,000 would-be migrants in Mexico try to make appointments. A CBP spokesman said he couldn’t confirm those figures.
Since January 2023, almost 1 million people have crossed into the United States via the app, CBP One. Once asylum seekers obtained their appointment — which could take months — they could live and work in the United States while their requests were processed.
The Biden administration and the Mexican government praised the system for curtailing the practice of migrants swarming the border. But migrants then congregated in places like Mexico City, to avoid cartel-controlled areas further north.
The cancellation of the CBP One program comes as the Mexican government is worried about its own migrants. It’s building huge shelters for its citizens who may be sent back from the United States under President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” program. Mexico may also wind up accepting some foreign deportees — though that’s not yet confirmed.
“For the Mexican deportees there’s a good plan,” said Arturo Rocha, who served as a senior Mexican migration official until last year. But for the foreigners now stranded in Mexico, “there’s uncertainty about what’s going to happen to them.”
They could be a valuable asset for Mexico, if they can be integrated into the labor market, he said. But, as in the United States, it’s difficult for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status.
Her appointment had been canceled — along with 30,000 others.
Now she doesn’t know what to do. Venezuela’s economy has collapsed in recent years. “I never had enough money to feed my kids properly,” she said. Her family now lives in a dirt-floored shack the size of a large closet, made of scrap wood and plastic sheeting, in a migrant camp in northern Mexico City. She and her husband work odd jobs.
At least here they can afford to eat.
“There’s no way I’m going back to Venezuela,” she said.
Mexico City was entirely unprepared for the surge of migrants over the past two years. The capital’s shelters have room for only 280 migrants; shelters run by charities can take in another 1,000, said Temístocles Villanueva, the city’s top immigration official.
About 1,700 migrants are living on the streets or in informal camps, he said.
Last May, protests broke out in three neighborhoods in the capital where migrants had set up tent camps. Residents blocked major avenues, holding signs reading: “The street is not a shelter.” When the federal government announced it would open a refugee office in the upscale neighborhood of Anzures, it was met with furious demonstrations. The government backed off, moving the facility to a poor neighborhood in the south.
Last month, Mexico City announced a plan to more than double the space at migrant shelters. Trump’s announcement “changes everything,” Villanueva said. Before, most migrants eventually moved on to the border. “This possibility of entering the U.S. in a legal way is over.”
Under CBP One, American authorities provided 1,450 asylum appointments a day, through a lottery system. At Carbajal’s shelter, some people clinched an appointment within days. Others had to keep trying for months.
“Mexico became a sort of giant waiting room,” said the Catholic priest.
The Biden administration further pushed people toward the app by limiting asylum for those who tried to simply cross the border illegally. Those policies, plus intensified Mexican enforcement, drove down illegal crossings sharply. Trump administration officials, however, took a dim view of the program, saying it was a magnet for migrants, many of whom will eventually fail to qualify for asylum.
The CBP One program “was a way to bring order to the flood of asylum-seekers, to make it more safe and efficient,” said Jorge Durand, a migration scholar at the University of Guadalajara. But, he said, “it should have been accessible from the migrants’ countries of origin. Because otherwise, the problem lands in Mexico.”
Maoly Reyes, 32, a street vendor from Venezuela, left because of the economic crisis and moved to Chile. But the mother of two couldn’t get legal status. Lured by the promise of the CBP One app, she undertook the punishing journey north, surviving a kidnapping by a criminal gang in southern Mexico.
“I wanted a house for my kids,” she said, looking down as she sliced tomatoes in the kitchen at the Archangel Raphael shelter. “Now I’m thinking, what can I do? Go back home? Or stay in Mexico, and try to get papers?”
Mexico has more than 1 million unfilled jobs, authorities say. But it can be very hard for migrants to gain legal status. Dana Graber Ladek, the representative here from the International Organization for Migration, said the process was costly and often unclear.
Nonetheless, she said, “There’s a lot of commitment on behalf of the government and civil society to make this work.”
But there’s no similar program for migrants stranded in Mexico. In part, that’s because authorities are still waiting to learn the details of Trump’s policies. He plans to revive a program from his first term in which migrants waited along the Mexican border for their U.S. asylum appointments. It’s not yet clear whether he’ll lean on Mexico to take in deportees from other countries.
Sheinbaum has said that Mexico will act in a humanitarian way toward foreign migrants at the border, and “seek their repatriation.”
Analysts predict that the cancellation of the CBP One program will fuel the migrant-smuggling business.
Huberson St Surin, 37, a Haitian who arrived in Mexico City two months ago, said there was no way he was going home. Large swaths of the Caribbean nation are overrun by gangs.
“My plan was to go to America until Donald Trump came in, and stopped the whole program,” he said with a laugh. “So now there is a new plan. Wait until Donald Trump finishes four years.”
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Frustration had already been growing in Mexico over the number of migrants camped out in cities far from the border, trying to secure American asylum appointments through a mobile app run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In Mexico City, some migrants have built tent cities and slept on the streets. In a country long sympathetic to migrants, neighbors started protesting.
Now, those migrants have no clear path to the United States.
“Everyone is in limbo, desperate, trying to figure out what to do,” said the Rev. Juan Luis Carbajal, who runs the Archangel Raphael migrant shelter in southern Mexico City.
The Mexican government has no data on how many foreigners have been waiting within its borders for their U.S. appointments. Reuters and the Associated Press, citing CBP officials, have reported that each day around 280,000 would-be migrants in Mexico try to make appointments. A CBP spokesman said he couldn’t confirm those figures.
Since January 2023, almost 1 million people have crossed into the United States via the app, CBP One. Once asylum seekers obtained their appointment — which could take months — they could live and work in the United States while their requests were processed.
The Biden administration and the Mexican government praised the system for curtailing the practice of migrants swarming the border. But migrants then congregated in places like Mexico City, to avoid cartel-controlled areas further north.
The cancellation of the CBP One program comes as the Mexican government is worried about its own migrants. It’s building huge shelters for its citizens who may be sent back from the United States under President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” program. Mexico may also wind up accepting some foreign deportees — though that’s not yet confirmed.
“For the Mexican deportees there’s a good plan,” said Arturo Rocha, who served as a senior Mexican migration official until last year. But for the foreigners now stranded in Mexico, “there’s uncertainty about what’s going to happen to them.”
They could be a valuable asset for Mexico, if they can be integrated into the labor market, he said. But, as in the United States, it’s difficult for undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status.
Mexico City has been overwhelmed by migrants
After seven months in the Mexican capital, Maribi Ruiz, 42, a Venezuelan security guard, was on the verge of making it into California. She, her husband and their two small daughters had been issued an appointment on Feb. 2 to file their asylum claim. They’d bought plane tickets to Tijuana. Then, last Monday, just hours after Trump was sworn in, Ruiz opened the CBP One app on her phone.Her appointment had been canceled — along with 30,000 others.
Now she doesn’t know what to do. Venezuela’s economy has collapsed in recent years. “I never had enough money to feed my kids properly,” she said. Her family now lives in a dirt-floored shack the size of a large closet, made of scrap wood and plastic sheeting, in a migrant camp in northern Mexico City. She and her husband work odd jobs.
At least here they can afford to eat.
“There’s no way I’m going back to Venezuela,” she said.
Mexico City was entirely unprepared for the surge of migrants over the past two years. The capital’s shelters have room for only 280 migrants; shelters run by charities can take in another 1,000, said Temístocles Villanueva, the city’s top immigration official.
About 1,700 migrants are living on the streets or in informal camps, he said.
Last May, protests broke out in three neighborhoods in the capital where migrants had set up tent camps. Residents blocked major avenues, holding signs reading: “The street is not a shelter.” When the federal government announced it would open a refugee office in the upscale neighborhood of Anzures, it was met with furious demonstrations. The government backed off, moving the facility to a poor neighborhood in the south.
Last month, Mexico City announced a plan to more than double the space at migrant shelters. Trump’s announcement “changes everything,” Villanueva said. Before, most migrants eventually moved on to the border. “This possibility of entering the U.S. in a legal way is over.”
How Mexico became a ‘giant waiting room’ for migrants
The influx of migrants into Mexico City is partly due to the design of the CBP One app. Until recently, it could only be accessed by asylum seekers who’d reached the capital or points further north.Under CBP One, American authorities provided 1,450 asylum appointments a day, through a lottery system. At Carbajal’s shelter, some people clinched an appointment within days. Others had to keep trying for months.
“Mexico became a sort of giant waiting room,” said the Catholic priest.
The Biden administration further pushed people toward the app by limiting asylum for those who tried to simply cross the border illegally. Those policies, plus intensified Mexican enforcement, drove down illegal crossings sharply. Trump administration officials, however, took a dim view of the program, saying it was a magnet for migrants, many of whom will eventually fail to qualify for asylum.
The CBP One program “was a way to bring order to the flood of asylum-seekers, to make it more safe and efficient,” said Jorge Durand, a migration scholar at the University of Guadalajara. But, he said, “it should have been accessible from the migrants’ countries of origin. Because otherwise, the problem lands in Mexico.”
Maoly Reyes, 32, a street vendor from Venezuela, left because of the economic crisis and moved to Chile. But the mother of two couldn’t get legal status. Lured by the promise of the CBP One app, she undertook the punishing journey north, surviving a kidnapping by a criminal gang in southern Mexico.
“I wanted a house for my kids,” she said, looking down as she sliced tomatoes in the kitchen at the Archangel Raphael shelter. “Now I’m thinking, what can I do? Go back home? Or stay in Mexico, and try to get papers?”
Mexico has more than 1 million unfilled jobs, authorities say. But it can be very hard for migrants to gain legal status. Dana Graber Ladek, the representative here from the International Organization for Migration, said the process was costly and often unclear.
Nonetheless, she said, “There’s a lot of commitment on behalf of the government and civil society to make this work.”
Mexico is preparing for Trump’s ‘mass deportation’
President Claudia Sheinbaum has launched a crash program to prepare to receive Mexican citizens who are deported from the United States. Authorities are building dozens of shelters in northern cities. Sheinbaum said this week that businesses would open 35,000 jobs to the deportees.But there’s no similar program for migrants stranded in Mexico. In part, that’s because authorities are still waiting to learn the details of Trump’s policies. He plans to revive a program from his first term in which migrants waited along the Mexican border for their U.S. asylum appointments. It’s not yet clear whether he’ll lean on Mexico to take in deportees from other countries.
Sheinbaum has said that Mexico will act in a humanitarian way toward foreign migrants at the border, and “seek their repatriation.”
Analysts predict that the cancellation of the CBP One program will fuel the migrant-smuggling business.
Huberson St Surin, 37, a Haitian who arrived in Mexico City two months ago, said there was no way he was going home. Large swaths of the Caribbean nation are overrun by gangs.
“My plan was to go to America until Donald Trump came in, and stopped the whole program,” he said with a laugh. “So now there is a new plan. Wait until Donald Trump finishes four years.”
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