EAGLE PASS, Texas – President Donald Trump’s first day back in office was marked by the signing of several executive orders.
Trump signed some of those orders in front of a crowd of supporters at the Capital One Arena, where people cheered him on after the inauguration, which was moved indoors because of inclement weather.
Among those orders and his promises during his speech, Trump emphasized an urgency in securing the southern border.
“I will declare a national emergency at our southern border,” Trump said.
A resident of Eagle Pass, who wanted to remain anonymous, said he is in favor of Trump’s initiatives.
“I agree with Trump saying that a lot of countries, or some of the countries, are emptying their prisons and psychiatric institutions, and I believe that was true in the 80s with Castro,” the Eagle Pass resident told KSAT. “I think that could happen.”
Approximately an hour after Trump took office, a mobile application called CBP One, which once helped nearly one million people cross the border legally, was discontinued. The application was useful for asylum-seekers during the Biden administration.
A recent update on CBP One reads:
“Effective January 20, 2025, the functionalities of CBP One™ that previously allowed undocumented aliens to submit advance information and schedule appointments at eight southwest border ports of entry is no longer available, and existing appointments have been cancelled.”
“For further inquiries, please contact CBP’s Office of Public Affairs at CBPMediaRelations@cbp.dhs.gov.”
Eagle Pass immigration attorney Alfredo Lozano said several of his current clients used CBP One to enter the United States legally. Without the application, Lozano said things could take a turn.
“One of the impacts that’s gonna happen is we’re going to see migration through the river through the desert,” Lozano said. “That’s gonna start up again.”
“We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places in which they came,” Trump said on Monday. “We will reinstate my ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy.”
“I think there should be some type of immigration reform,” another Eagle Pass resident, who wanted to remain anonymous, told KSAT. “There needs to be a way where people can legally come up here — not just asylum — but there needs to be a strong border and immigration reform.”
While Trump vows to change other previous immigration policies such as birthright citizenship, Lozano said he wants people to remember who is at risk of being removed from the U.S. during these conversations.
“I think what everybody forgets is there are people who have been in this country five, 10, 15 years,” Lozano said. “They’ve got jobs. They own homes. They’re paying off mortgages. There’s (sic) a lot of people here that are gonna get caught up in all of this that have been here for 10, 15 years, and they have no criminal record other than that they’ve entered illegally.”
