By ELLIOT SPAGAT
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — A nurse who fled Cuba within the Caribbean nation's largest exodus in greater than six many years needed a spot to remain in Mexico while she waited to legally enter the United States using a government app. A lady who had lived in the identical Tijuana neighborhood her entire life needed urgent medical attention after suffering wounds to her legs in a dog attack.
Word spread quickly and Rosales made her home a part of a listing of no less than three dozen migrant shelters in her hometown US-Mexico bordertemporarily housing individuals using the CBP One app.
“I told God that I would help every Cuban if they didn't amputate my feet,” said Rosales, 45, who used a wheelchair after being attacked by five dogs until Figueredo helped her close her wounds heal.
CBP One has brought nearly one million people to the United States with two-year residency and work authorization could disappear once President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Figueredo, 25, now works as a medical assistant within the Houston area and keeps in contact with Rosales, who left her job as a bank cleaner to deal with her migrant shelter. The people Rosales hosts, mostly Cubans, seek advice from her as “'Tía Martha” (Aunt Martha) because she cooks pancake breakfasts, throws birthday parties and takes them to their CBP One appointments.
Advocates say CBP One has helped create and reduce order on the border illegal crossings. But Trump has said he would end it as a part of a broader measure immigration tough crackdown. Critics say it gives a lottery system priority over individuals who have long lived within the U.S. illegally and paid taxes and other people who’ve waited years for a visa.
Dayron Garcia, a health care provider in Cuba who heard from a nephew of Rosales, applied along with his wife and kids and plans to settle with a friend in Houston. He said Rosales' home “felt like family” and “CBP One was a rescue.”
“It’s a guarantee,” said Garcia, 40. “They come with papers, with probation.”
CBP One began under Trump and altered under Biden
U.S. Customs and Border Protection introduced CBP One toward the top of Trump's first term to present customs agents the flexibility to schedule inspections and permit visitors on short-term visas to increase their stays.
The Biden administration has expanded its use to migrants to exchange one opaque patchwork of exceptions on an asylum ban that was in effect on the time because of the pandemic.
CBP One is popular amongst Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Mexicans, likely since it is promoted by advocates of their communities.
Illegal border crossings by Cubans under CBP One fell from a high of nearly 35,000 in April 2022 to simply 97 in September.
The demand for appointments far exceeds the availability. At the top of last yr, a median of about 280,000 people were competing for 1,450 appointments per day, in line with CBP. The winners must report back to a border crossing inside three weeks.
An evening owl
Migrant shelters along the Mexican-U.S. border at the moment are occupied primarily by people searching for online appointments.
Rosales' house is in a neighborhood of dilapidated houses where old tires are stacked to stop flash flooding. Migrants watch television, play pool, do household chores and look after their children at Rosales' house or in a rental house nearby. Those who don't yet have appointments are using their phones to look for slots available every day at eight U.S. border crossings with Mexico, a task akin to attempting to buy Taylor Swift concert tickets.
Rosales works all night. An aide drives to the airport in an SUV that Rosales bought as retirement money from her banking job.
Shortly after midnight, she takes guests from her house to Tijuana's essential border crossing San Diego for the primary appointments of the day at 5 a.m. She chats with them, smiles for photos and hugs people goodbye.
At 3 a.m., she's at a television station for a four-hour shift, cleansing the newsroom and fetching coffee for journalists who give her the newest on immigration and town.
She checks her phone Migrants need protection who heard about her through social media or from family and friends. She identifies her contact list by group size and date: “3 on the 16th”, “6 on the 17th”.
Rosales, considered one of 13 children, dropped out of college within the third grade. Through reading the Bible, she learned enough to barely understand texts, to which she often responds with voice messages or calls.
Enrique Lucero was Tijuana's director of migration affairs when she sought advice from city hall. He helped Rosales arrange a legal entity to lift money and made himself available for emergencies, akin to when a lady missed her CBP One appointment to present birth. Lucero spoke with CBP to make sure the girl and her baby got inside.
“She’s worried about them. She’s crying for them,” Lucero said.
The exodus from Cuba
Border arrests of Cubans increased in the course of the yr COVID-19 Pandemic and after Protests against the federal government in 2021. Nicaragua recently relaxed the foundations for Cubans to fly from Havana and thus avoid the walk Darien Gapa dangerous jungle in Colombia and Panama. By spring 2022, Cubans surpassed all nationalities except Mexicans in illegal border crossings.
“CBP One came like a gift from God,” said Yoandis Delgado, who flew to Nicaragua in 2023, paid a smuggler $1,000 to get to southern Mexico and was repeatedly robbed by Mexican authorities while trying to succeed in the U.S. border . “CBP One gave us a sense of possibility, of hope.”
Delgado, a chef in Cuba, said Rosales' home and neighborhood weren’t particularly popular with people searching for to use migrants and gave him a way of security that he wouldn't get in hotels or other accommodations.
“She lives in the same condition as us, no better,” Delgado said after a pancake breakfast. “She cries about everything that happens to us, about what we had to endure to get here from Cuba.”
A bleak future for CBP One
Biden administration officials are calling CBP One a key success of their technique to create legal routes on the border while stopping illegal crossings. They indicate that folks in life-threatening situations can come to the border crossing without an appointment to present their case.
Fear is spreading amongst migrants in Mexico because they fear Trump will end CBP One. There can also be unrest within the USA because probation expires after two years.
The Trump transition team didn’t reply to a matter concerning the way forward for CBP One, but its allies said it was overly generous and encouraged immigration. A bill that failed within the Senate in 2023 would have banned the app's use to soak up migrants.
Figueredo, the nurse who helped Rosales, plans to get a green card under a 1966 law Applies to Cubans. She says she and her partner, a hairdresser, got here to “develop professionally and support our future children”.
She often writes to Rosales, telling her that her job is “crazy” and asking about her health. “I hope you are very happy,” she wrote.
Originally published:
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