‘It’s all been so unjust’: Migrants react to Trump border orders

On the morning that the president took the oath of office, around 60 migrants gathered at the Chaparral crossing in Tijuana, waiting to speak to border guards about their asylum claims. But they never got the chance, as Mexican officials instead directed them towards buses that would take them back to shelters.

The CBP One app – a mobile application launched by the Biden administration and criticised by Trump on the campaign trial – had shut down.

The app had been the only legal pathway to request asylum at the US-Mexico border, and with all of its appointments scrapped, there would no crossing the border.

For some, it felt like the end of the road.

Oralia has been living with her two youngest children for seven months in a nylon tent just walking distance from the US border.

She says she is also fleeing cartel threats in Michoacán, and that her 10-year-old boy has epilepsy. She says her hope was to get him medical attention somewhere safe in the US.

But without the CBP One app, Oralia says she has little hope that her claim will ever be heard.

“We have no choice but to go back and trust in God that nothing happens,” she says.

A local migrant rights’ lawyer has apparently advised her to wait and see how President Trump’s actions unfold. But Oralia’s mind is made up.

Her bags packed, the tent she’s called home for most of the last year is now vacant for the next family.

“It’s all been so unjust,” she says, wiping away tears.

“Mexico receives their citizens with no complaint, but it doesn’t work the other way round.

“I just hope God moves him [Trump] because there are lots of families like ours.”