President Trump’s executive actions have remade the immigration landscape, leaving many migrants in despair.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
With a handful of executive actions, President Trump has quickly reshaped the U.S. immigration landscape. Many people who’d been hoping to enter the United States are now in limbo. NPR’s Eyder Peralta is just across the Southern border in Juarez, Mexico. Hi, Eyder.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Eyder, tell us more about where you are and what you’re seeing.
PERALTA: So Ari, President Trump has declared a national emergency along this border, saying that America’s sovereignty is under attack. But here, as you can hear, it’s quiet. I’m at the foot of one of the bridges that leads to El Paso. And we drove up and down this fence – the border fence – and there are no migrants. And there’s two reasons for that. The main one is that President Trump is inheriting a very quiet border. Over his four years in power, President Biden tightened asylum rules, and he pressured Mexico to stop migrants from reaching the border. And just before he left office, apprehensions at the border were lower than they were when Trump left office the first time.
But it’s also quiet because migrants have no idea what to do. We’ve been out today, and we’ve been talking to migrants sitting in park and on stoops, and they’re confused. They’re sad. They’re desolate. And they just don’t know what to do because yesterday Trump shut down the only real path toward crossing the U.S. legally, and that was this thing called the CBP One app. It allowed migrants to book appointments to cross the border and ask U.S. authorities for asylum, but that is no more.
SHAPIRO: And you were at the border yesterday when these first policies made their impact. How did people react to it?
PERALTA: It was dramatic. Some migrants had waited nearly a year to get an appointment, and a few dozen of them had an appointment just after – it was scheduled for just after inauguration. They lined up, some starting at 5 a.m., hopeful that maybe their appointments would be honored. But shortly after Donald Trump took the oath of office, cellphones lit up, and migrants got a message that their appointments were no longer valid. Marjelis Tinoco, a migrant from Venezuela, kneeled on the ground, and she prayed. Let’s listen.
MARJELIS TINOCO: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
PERALTA: And what she’s saying there is she’s saying, “My God, why me? Dear Lord,” she said, “why so much pain?” And reporters asked her, what would you tell President Trump if you could talk to him?
TINOCO: (Speaking Spanish)
PERALTA: And she’s saying, “I’d tell him to have compassion to let us cross. It’s been six months of suffering.”
I think what’s important to note here is that Tinoco, like all the migrants in that line, had scored an appointment to cross the border legally. A lot of them had been waiting in Mexico for months, applying every day for a chance to present their case to U.S. authorities, and yesterday their dreams were crushed.
SHAPIRO: These changes also obviously affect Mexicans who have no intention of coming to the U.S. What is the Mexican government saying?
PERALTA: Well, look, there’s two big ways in which it affects Mexico. First, because Mexico – because Trump has essentially shut the border to migrants, and it has reinstated a policy known as Remain in Mexico. And that means migrants from all over the world trying to reach the U.S. would have to apply for asylum from Mexico. And second, they’re worried that Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented migrants, and that could mean a lot of Mexicans. And here in a big parking lot just down the street, members of the civil defense are building a tent city that they say could hold about 5,000 people, so they’re getting prepared.
SHAPIRO: NPR’s Eyder Peralta reporting from Juarez, Mexico. Thank you very much.
PERALTA: Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
