LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Let's move now from the 46th president's final actions to the 47th president's first moves. Within minutes of Donald Trump being sworn into office, he stopped an app that allowed migrants to get appointments at the border to seek asylum in the U.S. As NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from the border city of Juarez, it left migrants in Mexico facing despair.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: As President Trump was arriving at the Capitol in Washington, Ridell Jimenez couldn't keep still. His nervousness meant he kept rubbing his shoulders with his hands.
RIDELL JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: He lined up at 5 a.m. here at the foot of the international bridge that leads to El Paso. When he arrived in Mexico City from Cuba three months ago, he started applying for appointments. And on the first day of January, he got a 1 p.m. appointment on January 20.
JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "We just have to wait and see," he says. He looks at his wife cradling their 1-month-old. I ask him, is she letting you sleep? And he smiles. She doesn't sleep at all, he says, but that's OK.
JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "She wakes up at night, and she smiles at you and wants to play."
JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "We're in such a precarious place. Seeing her smile is the only thing that keeps us going." But as we speak, phones start lighting up.
MARGELIS TINOCO: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
PERALTA: Margelis Tinoco, a Venezuelan migrant, drops to her knees. "God, why me?" - she sobs. The CBP One app on her phone says her appointment was no longer valid. She had been waiting for that appointment every day for six months.
TINOCO: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
PERALTA: "Lord, have mercy on me," she said. "Lord, have mercy on my family." President Biden, who introduced the app, made it nearly impossible to ask for asylum at the border without it. The app became like a lottery for migrants, so its demise shook this border city. Migrants walked across the town in a daze. Angela Ayala had been waiting for an appointment since she left Venezuela nearly a year ago.
ANGELA AYALA: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "The economic situation forced me to leave." Then she thought back on what she had to feed her kids.
AYALA: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
PERALTA: "We had to split an egg." This trip was supposed to help them. Along the way, she says she's been beaten and sexually assaulted, but she kept going.
AYALA: (Speaking Spanish, crying).
PERALTA: "With what's happened, I've lost hope." She understands that President Trump has to protect his country, but she hopes he finds compassion.
AYALA: (Speaking Spanish).
PERALTA: "He should know," she says, "that we're not all bad."
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Juarez, Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSEPH SHABASON'S "BROKEN HEARTED KOTA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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