Why This Matters
The fate of asylum-seekers waiting to enter the U.S. hangs in the balance as America elects its next president in an election where immigration has become a flashpoint issue.
It was usually at night, back at the shelter, when Ana’s daughter would begin to cry. When most families huddled onto the concrete floor were already asleep, and Ana was drifting off herself, her daughter would ask: “Mommy, when are we going back home?”
It’s a question that, for over a year, Ana hasn’t been able to answer.
Her family is among the thousands of migrants waiting in northern Mexican border cities for the chance to enter the U.S. through the Biden administration’s CBP One program, which requires asylum seekers to schedule appointments through a smartphone app in order to enter the U.S.
There are many more migrants than appointments. The app’s lottery system for distributing appointments has meant that the wait for some has stretched for months. For Ana’s family, it’s been over a year, with no way of knowing when they will get an appointment.
CBP One is a central piece of the Biden administration’s approach to lowering illegal border crossings. It’s a carrot and stick approach: Wait your turn and, if approved, be paroled into the U.S., but cross illegally and become ineligible for asylum, with few exceptions. Since the app launched, more than 850,000 migrants entered with appointments.
But for some migrants, the chances of getting an appointment appear to be growing thin as the U.S. faces an election that could put former President Donald Trump, who has promised to shut down the program, back in power.
Ana tries to comfort her daughter – we’re going back soon, she tells her.
But her oldest daughter, now 9, is old enough to see past her mother’s white lies. She’s old enough, too, to remember what sent them fleeing from their hometown of Michoacán, a state in southern Mexico, last October.
inewsource has changed their names to conceal their identities and protect their safety.
One evening, outside the small grocery store the family owned in Michoacán, Ana’s father was shot in the shoulder as he fled from a spray of bullets. An organized crime group believed he had shared information with the local police about a recent killing, leading to the arrest of one of its members. The group promised revenge.
The father survived the attack, but in the hospital while he was recovering, a friend came by with a message from the group.
“I want their whole bloodline dead. Even the dog,” the friend told them, recounting what he overheard.
A woman from southwestern Mexico shows the bullet wound in her husband’s shoulder, Oct. 22, 2023. They fled to Tijuana with their family to seek asylum in the United States. (Zoë Meyers/inewsource)
Nowhere in Mexico felt safe. The criminal group was organized enough to find – and kill – them anywhere in the country. So within days of the shooting, 19 members of Ana’s family abandoned their lives in Michoacán and made their way toward the U.S.
What they didn’t know then was that the decadeslong promise of protection for the persecuted, a pillar of American idealism, was now largely operating under a new policy:
By appointment only.
A year in limbo
Around this time of year, back in Michoacán, Ana’s family would normally pick and sell flowers at a cemetery for Day of the Dead, a holiday celebrating dead ancestors in early November.
“Those memories are memories that, all my life, I have liked,” Isa, Ana’s mother, said one recent afternoon from their apartment in Tijuana.
“All night long we cut flowers,” Isa said. Then they would load the truck, go to the market and sell out within an hour. Then back to cutting flowers. “There was a lot of security.”
But all that changed about five years ago – practically overnight, Isa said.
After fleeing violence and threats in their homestate in southwest Mexico a family has been waiting in Tijuana for nearly a year to receive an appointment through the CBP One application, July 12, 2024. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Murder rates in Mexico started to climb drastically after 2015. At its high, between 2018 and 2020, the country reported about 29 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to Statista, a global data platform. Murder rates have dropped slightly in recent years.
“The phenomenon of violence in Mexico is very complex,” according to Laura Calderón, executive director of Justice in Mexico, a research initiative at University of San Diego.
Organized criminal groups account for a large portion of crime in Mexico, but so do local crime groups, which often vie for power following the arrest of major criminal leaders. In Michoacán, community defense groups called “autodefensas” led by mostly farmers have sprung up in response to organized crime, and also contribute to crime, Calderón said.
Lemon and avocado farmers in particular have been forced out due to violence and extortion that put increasing economic pressure on their livelihoods, turning some places into “ghost towns,” Calderón said.
After fleeing violence and threats in her homestate in southwest Mexico a woman has been waiting with her family in Tijuana for nearly a year to receive an appointment through the CBP One application, July 12, 2024. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Some families are moving toward the capital, Mexico City, or other areas of the country. Many others, though, are moving toward the U.S., through cities including Tijuana.
The United Nations Refugee Agency, or UNHCR, reported that by 2021, more than 830,000 people within Mexico had moved to another part of the country to avoid crime.
In many moments over the past year in Tijuana, Ana’s family has wanted to go back home. They miss their neighborhood gatherings in the afternoon, chatting with friends and playing lotería outside while the kids played.
Now in Tijuana, they remain in hiding, afraid that the criminal group who targeted them in Michoacán will find them.
A girl whose family fled violence in southern Mexico plays on the balcony of an apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Her family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Over the past year, Ana’s youngest daughter, age 3, has regressed in her speech. Instead of learning new words, she has stopped talking. She uses diapers again. When the girl’s birthday came in May, Ana decided to let it pass without telling her.
Her son, 5, has become aggressive and angry at times. He said he wants to go home to Michoacán and go to school.
Ana’s oldest daughter, 9, used to go to dance lessons. Now, she complains that they have no chairs to sit on and her back hurts from sleeping on the floor.
‘How could we go back?’
“One more day.”
That’s what Ana tells herself in the morning before opening the CBP One application on her phone to see if her appointment has finally come.
“I say, ‘Oh, Father, you know my need’ and I open it, and no.” Her appointment hasn’t come.
Women from southern Mexico log into the CBP One Application in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. They have been trying to enter the United States with their family through the application for a year since fleeing threats of violence and death in their home state. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
More than a year after arriving in Tijuana, her family is still waiting for an appointment. In that time, Biden’s border policies have increasingly narrowed access to asylum for those without appointments.
Each morning, Ana is competing for one of about 385 daily appointment slots in Tijuana. The app offers 1,450 appointments daily across eight ports of entry on the southern border. As of August, 40% of appointments were reserved for those who have had CBP One registrations the longest, but the rest are allocated randomly.
Demand for appointments far outweighs supply. In a given month there are about 45,000 appointment slots. But CBP One receives an average of 5 million requests for appointments each month, according to a CBS News analysis of data from on the first 13 months of the program.
The risks are high for anyone without an appointment.
In June, Biden issued an executive order barring asylum access for migrants who enter the U.S. between ports of entry, unless they can show “exceptionally compelling circumstances exist.” The restriction carved out exceptions for unaccompanied minors and people the government finds are victims of severe trafficking.
On its face, the executive order’s restrictions are only meant to be in place during periods of “high levels of encounters.” But an amendment to the order last month raised the threshold for rolling back the restrictions, which could keep them in place indefinitely, experts say.
Christina Asencio, director of research and analysis on refugee protection for Human Rights First, said the very premise of CBP One goes against the founding principles of the U.S. asylum system.
A mother fleeing violence in southern Mexico does laundry outside a rented apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Her family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Children from a family fleeing violence in southern Mexico play outside of an apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Their family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
“Asylum isn’t something you can schedule,” Asencio said. Instead, it was created to offer protection to those seeking immediate persecution in their home countries.
United States law and international refugee treaties say asylum can only be requested once a person is within the country or at a port of entry, and that asylum seekers cannot be punished for how they enter the country.
A decade ago, that was the process asylum seekers could take. Today, through two presidential administrations that have relied on executive actions to make sweeping changes, that process is increasingly unavailable.
Besides the legal restrictions, CBP One also presents practical restrictions. The app is only available in three languages – English, Spanish and Haitian Creole – and requires a smartphone with power and internet to use.
Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, the border enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security, has implemented several updates to the app, including one which expanded the locations where an appointment can be requested and another which limited the number of individuals who can request an appointment with one account.
Earlier this year, Ana’s family had their CBP One account deleted when the app updated, effectively erasing their priority in line after they had already waited several months.
It’s not uncommon that updates have led to more issues for asylum-seekers waiting in Mexico who have few places to turn for recourse or help, according to Hollie Webb, a supervising attorney with the migrant legal group Al Otro Lado.
“The situation is a complete disaster” Webb said.
A team of spokespeople for CBP was unable to respond to questions from inewsource by time of publication.
Human rights and immigration advocates say the appointment system forces asylum seekers, some who have traversed South and Central America or came from further away, to wait in dangerous conditions in Mexican border cities, where they face extortion, kidnapping, rape, torture and other violence.
The situation can be even more dire for Mexican asylum seekers, who must wait for appointments in the same country they are trying to flee.
Children from a family fleeing violence in southern Mexico play on the floor of a rented apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Their family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Just a few days into 2024, Ana’s father received a call from a member of the criminal group in Michoacán who tried to kill him: They knew he was in Tijuana and said they were coming for him and his family.
“Did you think you were going to get away from us? We already know where you’re hiding, a–, and we have people there, too. We’re coming for you, son of a b–, for you and your whole family. I’m going to kill you all, haha. You’re not getting away from me again, a–,” one of several text messages sent days later to Ana’s father read.
They decided to leave the shelter they were staying at and ask to be let into the country at a port of entry. At the time, Biden’s “Circumvention of Legal Pathways” limited asylum access for those who did not have a CBP One appointment, but should still have allowed for screenings at ports of entry.
However, when Ana’s family reached an immigration officer at the port of entry, they were turned away and told to keep waiting for an appointment. (CBP did not respond to questions about this specific incident, but an official told the Union-Tribune in 2023 that officers were not turning asylum seekers away without screening them.)
A woman holds her granddaughther at a shelter for migrants in Tijuana, July 12, 2024. After fleeing violence and threats in their homestate in southwest Mexico the family has been waiting in Tijuana for nearly a year to receive an appointment through the CBP One application. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
By now, some of the 19 family members who originally fled to Tijuana went back to live in other parts of Mexico, tired of waiting for an appointment. But Ana and others have stayed, convinced by continued threats that they can’t go home.
In June, Isa’s sister, who remained in Michoacán after the others left, narrowly survived after her home was set ablaze in another attack from a criminal group, Isa said.
It happened one night while the sister was watching TV. The neighbors would later tell them that two men on a motorbike drove by with a flaming bottle. Then it came through the window of her living room.
“Just because my sister didn’t tell them where we were,” Isa said. “How could we go back?”
As election approaches, the wait drags on
In a corner of Ana’s one bedroom apartment, where the remaining 14 family members are now living, a neat stack of suitcases covered with a blanket sits by the front door.
For more than a year, safety has been within their sight – the U.S.-Mexico border just a few miles north from where they’ve been living – but never within their grasp. Ana still holds onto hope that their appointment will come. But she fears everything could change in November.
A mother fleeing violence in southern Mexico sits with her children in a rented apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Her family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
The presidential election in November will decide the fate of Ana’s family – and other migrants seeking CBP One appointments who now have waited months, up to a year in Mexico.
Trump has vowed to end CBP One as soon as taking office, among other plans such as a mass deportation of undocumented migrants and the suspension of refugee resettlement.
On the other hand, Harris hasn’t weighed in specifically on her plan for key Biden immigration programs, including CBP One, but she promised increased penalties for illegal entries and support for the bipartisan border security bill, which failed this year but would further limit access to asylum.
Four years ago, Biden campaigned on a promise to “restore our moral standing in the world and our historic role as a safe haven for refugees and asylum seekers.”
Indeed, his tenure included policies aimed to offer pathways toward legal status for some undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and expand opportunities for other migrants to legally enter the country through the use of parole, a discretionary authority to temporarily allow a noncitizen remain in the U.S. His administration also admitted the highest number of refugees since 1994.
But immigration has become a glaring political weakness for Biden and now Harris as she seeks to hold on to the White House for Democrats.
A woman brushes her grandaughter’s hair in a shelter for migrants in Tijuana, July 12, 2024. After fleeing violence and threats in their homestate in southwest Mexico the family has been waiting in Tijuana for nearly a year to receive an appointment through the CBP One application. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Illegal crossings reached record highs in 2023, a milestone Trump and other Republicans have denounced as an “invasion” that threatens American security. Democrats have also leaned toward tighter border control as major blue cities around the country struggled at times to deal with the sudden arrival of tens of thousands of migrants.
Increasingly, anti-immigrant sentiments across the country have also set the stage for both Republicans and Democrats to restrict asylum access, according to Tom Wong, founding director of UC San Diego’s U.S. Immigration Policy Center.
“The Biden administration’s response to record numbers of arrivals has been to take pages from Trump’s immigration playbook,” Wong said.
The Biden administration says its border policies have led to a significant drop in illegal crossings: September had the lowest monthly number of encounters on the southwest border in Biden’s entire administration at 54,000 – about a quarter of the number of encounters a year before. Experts say increased immigration enforcement within Mexico, and organized crime in the country, also played a role in the reduced numbers.
But critics say the president’s approach isn’t a long term solution. Moreover, some research has found that increasing opportunities for migrants to enter the U.S. legally, as opposed to narrowing them, reduces illegal border crossings.
Margaret Cargioli, directing attorney for policy and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, said instead of limiting asylum to address illegal crossings, the government could make family visas, work visas and parole more accessible, in addition to resuming processing at ports of entry without appointments.
“There’s absolutely no need why a family fleeing a powerful cartel should be turned away at a port of entry,” Cargioli said.
In a recent legal decision, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision from a lower district court which found that the practice of “metering” – when border officials turn away asylum seekers from ports of entry – is illegal.
The decision does not affect Biden’s CBP One program, but immigration advocates have likened CBP One to “digital metering” for its limits on asylum seekers.
In another lawsuit, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with other immigration advocacy groups, are suing the Biden administration to end his latest asylum rule, alleging it violates standing U.S. asylum which Congress enacted.
There are currently no hearings for the case scheduled, according to Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project.
A mother fleeing violence in southern Mexico does dishes in a rented apartment in Tijuana, Oct. 11, 2024. Her family has been waiting for an appointment to enter the United States through the CBP One application for a year. (Zoë Meyers for inewsource)
Back in their apartment, Ana’s family is planning their next steps. They can’t afford their rent and the shelters, which have limits on how long migrants can stay, aren’t an option anymore.
In small ways, they’re trying to make the wait more bearable. Isa bought shiny metallic butterflies that hang on the wall. Ana started looking into registering her kids for school.
But there are still those nights, just before sleeping, when Ana’s daughter cries and asks when they will go home. She misses her toys, her friends, the store the family owned.
Don’t cry, Ana tells her. They’ll go back soon.
“And when she falls asleep, I cry,” Ana said.
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Publish date : 2024-11-01 01:28:00
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