Topic 42: The end of the action brings anxiety to the border, but not confusion

As of late Thursday, more than 62,000 had applied for the first 1,000 appointments available on May 24. So far, 800 people have confirmed ordination, and the largest number of immigrants have come from Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico and Venezuela.

While these don’t appear to be new situations, Thursday’s series of setbacks immigrants faced suggested a significant part of the Biden administration’s plan to manage the border is continuing to struggle to manage the volume of demand.

Across from Brownsville, Texas, on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, a group of 11 Venezuelan migrants sat outside their tents Thursday to try to get a meeting. They update their phones again and again, only to get error messages in response. The system was overwhelmed with thousands of migrants trying to get appointments and available slots were filled immediately.

“We can’t get in, we don’t understand the new system,” complained Wendy Perez Pena, 31, who fled Venezuela in March to escape poverty.

Jeison Rodríguez Jesús Salas, 27, shook his head in frustration.

“They’re not renovating it well, they need to renovate it better,” he said.

Of that 11-member group, none got an appointment on Thursday.

Elsewhere on the border, in Reynosa, Mexico, across from McAllen, Texas, under the scorching sun, 20-year-old Osiris Yamilet Ochoa tried repeatedly to request a meeting through the app.

On Thursday afternoon, he opened it again and read the message, “Waiting for an appointment.”

Ochoa said many are trying to enter the U.S. “But we’ve heard that if you cross before your appointment date, it could be considered an illegal loan” and could hurt their cases, he said as he took a break from selling. Come to the street to buy milk for her 8-month-old daughter Milagros. “I don’t want to risk it. We have been here for three months. It could be a few more days,” he said.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied widespread technical problems with the CBP One app. “We’re using it very effectively,” he said Thursday. The problem, he said, was lack of staff to schedule the required number of interviews.

Those responsible for shelters and shelters in Mexico acknowledged that the challenges faced by migrants are not new.

“There is no difference,” said José Luis Elias Rodríguez, director of the San Juan Diego and San Francisco de Asis Migrant House, a shelter in Matamoros. “Only a few made appointments,” he said. “It’s the same thing that happened in the past, the stage was saturated,” he commented, explaining that there were not enough nominations.