CBP One: Donald Trump shuts down immigration app dashing migrants' hopes
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Just as Donald Trump's inauguration concluded, Honduran asylum seeker Denia Mendez's phone buzzed with alarming news: the CBP One app, her lifeline to a new life in the US, was down. Panic set in. Her appointment, scheduled for January 21st, hung precariously in the balance.
![[Sofia Mendez, 15, and her brother Isai, 13, walk through the sleeping quarters of a migrant shelter]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/21/12/30/Honduran-migrants-Denia-Mendez-and-her-family-react-to-the-cancellation-of-their-asylum-appointment.jpeg)
Mendez, 32, frantically called for her daughter Sofia, urging her to bring the phone. The CBP One app, established under the Biden administration to manage asylum requests at the southwest border, represented Mendez's only legal pathway to safety. A year of waiting, a year fraught with uncertainty, culminated in this terrifying moment.
![[The family pray ahead of Trump's inauguration]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/21/12/19/Asylum-seekers-attend-a-church-service-ahead-of-the-inauguration-of-U-S--President-elect-Donald-Trum.jpeg)
She recounted a harrowing tale from January 1, 2024, when a gang member in Honduras demanded a fortnightly payment of some $120 from the proceeds of her small Tupperware business. Unable to meet the demand, Mendez said she pleaded for two months to get the money. Five days later, another gang member came with the same demand.
"He told me: you get warned twice. The third time we won't be talking," Mendez said. Fearing for her life, she fled that night with her daughter Sofia, now 15, and son Isai, now 13. She left without saying goodbye to anyone to avoid the risk of being denounced.
Over the course of a week, Mendez made her way to Monterrey, Mexico, with the help of money sent by a brother in Maryland. In Monterrey, she found work packing tortillas, working eight-hour shifts a day. She changed phones and abandoned her Facebook account as she said she kept receiving threatening messages from the gang members in Honduras.
