Margelis Rodriguez and her two children took selfies on their flight to Tijuana, showing off the shirts she had specially made to mark what she hoped would be the moment that would change her family’s life. On the back of the shirts were their names and the flags of the six countries they passed through in 2024. On the front, between the flags of her native Venezuela and the United States, was written in Spanish: “If it was possible, thank God, the time was worth it, I achieved it!”
The words of celebration now hurt — underscoring how close they came to making it without actually achieving it and how precarious their lives are now, with a future more uncertain than ever, Rodriguez said near the tent where her family lives in a shelter in Tijuana, a block from the imposing wall that marks the U.S. border.
The family is among tens of thousands of people scheduled for appointments with U.S. immigration authorities through February, many of whom have been stranded in Mexican border cities after President Donald Trump took office.
As part of a broad immigration crackdown, his administration quickly canceled all appointments scheduled through a U.S. government app. Under Biden, the CBP One app facilitated the entry of nearly a million people since January 2023, and supporters say it helped bring order to the border and reduce illegal crossings.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates that about 280,000 people were trying to get appointments each day, many of them after traveling to Mexico, the only country where the app worked. Now they face the daunting question of what to do next.
Some returned home. Others left shelters vowing to cross the border illegally. The Rodriguez family seems to reflect the prevailing mood: stay put and see how Trump’s policies evolve in the coming months.
Everything changed in a moment
Rodriguez flew to Tijuana with her 12-year-old son and six-year-old daughter on Jan. 19, the day before Trump was sworn in. She never worried that the change in administration would affect her Jan. 21 appointment. A Venezuelan friend in Chicago had a job for her at a factory, a place to live and a school for her children.
She cried when the notification arrived in her email. “It was too much of a blow,” she said. But she still went to the port of entry with her children at 5 a.m. and waited for seven hours, hoping they would be called. They never were.
It has been more than a year since they left their hometown of Tumeremo, in a region plagued by violence and gang disputes related to illegal gold mining in the remote, mineral-rich area near the borders of Guyana and Brazil. Rodriguez said gangs increasingly controlled life there, including periodically closing her children’s school and hiding out in people’s homes.
She and her family left with her friend and his 16-year-old son, taking buses and walking two and a half days through the dangerous Darien Gap. They spent nine months in Pachuca, outside Mexico City, where Rodriguez, 38, found jobs at a tortilla factory, a butcher shop and then as a caregiver while they waited for her CBP One appointment.
Life in Tijuana
Almost all of the money she earned was spent on the trip to Tijuana. She doesn’t have the $1,200 needed to return to Pachuca.
She and her children spend their days in an uncomfortable state of boredom mixed with anxiety. They help clean the bathrooms, cook and sweep at the shelter.
Source: timesunion
