Stranded at the Border: The Consequences of Shutting Down Access to Asylum
By: Center for Gender & Refugee Studies Staff
The second Trump administration has taken drastic measures to narrow pathways to protection for people fleeing persecution and torture in their home countries. It has sought to fast-track deportations of people seeking asylum in the United States, depriving those with cases pending before the immigration courts of fair hearings on their claims. It has attempted to revoke humanitarian protections for newcomers as well as longstanding community members. And at the U.S. southern border, the administration has completely shut down access to the asylum process, leaving vulnerable refugee families, children, and adults stranded in perilous conditions.
Asylum provides a lifesaving lifeline to those escaping persecution. Now the right to seek safety—long recognized under United States law—is effectively out of reach for many who come to the United States in search of safe haven.
Within hours of the President taking office on January 20, 2025, his administration suspended all access to asylum for people seeking safety at ports of entry (official crossings) along the United States southern border. His administration also abruptly cancelled all asylum screening appointments that had already been scheduled through the government’s CBP One smartphone app, leaving approximately 30,000 asylum seekers stranded in Mexico without recourse.
How We Got Here
From May 2023 until January 20, 2025, the only available avenue for most people to seek asylum at the southern border was through an appointment on CBP One. The United States government encouraged people seeking asylum to register for CBP One and wait in Mexico until they received an appointment to present themselves at a port of entry. When an asylum seeker appeared at a port of entry for a scheduled appointment, the Department of Homeland Security would typically issue a notice to appear in immigration court and release the person into the United States to pursue their legal claims in safety. Thousands of asylum seekers followed the government’s instructions, often spending many months waiting in dangerous conditions in Mexico while repeatedly trying, and often failing, to obtain a CBP One appointment.
The Policy Change and Why It Is Unlawful
There is no legal basis for the government’s decisions to cancel scheduled CBP One appointments or to effectively shut down ports of entry to people seeking asylum. To the contrary, the government has a statutory obligation to provide access to the United States asylum process to people fleeing persecution, including those seeking safety at ports of entry along the southern border. Nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act or any other source of law permits the government’s asylum shutdown policy.
Fighting Back
In June 2025, the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies (CGRS) filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s asylum shutdown policy, alongside co-counsel at the American Immigration Council, Democracy Forward, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. We represent two organizational plaintiffs that serve asylum seekers in the United States and Mexico—Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance—as well as 11 individual plaintiffs who have been harmed by the unlawful shutdown policy.
We argue that the government’s asylum shutdown policy has no legal basis. It violates our immigration laws and deprives people fleeing persecution of their legal right to seek asylum, leaving them stranded in dangerous conditions.
The Human Cost
The experiences of our individual asylum seeker plaintiffs and the asylum seekers that Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance serve underscore the cruelty and chaos that the government’s unlawful actions have caused. Our individual plaintiffs include people who, while awaiting the opportunity to seek asylum at a United States port of entry, have been kidnapped, tortured, and threatened by cartels that prey on migrants in northern Mexico. Both Al Otro Lado and Haitian Bridge Alliance, which provide life-saving legal and humanitarian services to people seeking asylum at the border, have seen their operations completely derailed.
The stories of two of our individual plaintiffs illustrate the harrowing consequences of a policy that shuts the door on people who have done exactly what our government told them to do.
Maria Doe, a Mexican national, scheduled an appointment through CBP One in hopes of seeking asylum in the United States after suffering a years-long retaliation campaign by a cartel that murdered her family members and continues to target her for testifying against its police collaborators in Mexico. Her appointment was canceled on January 20, 2025, forcing Maria and her husband into hiding, trapped in the very country they are desperate to flee.
Jessica Doe, a Colombian national, scheduled an appointment through CBP One after she was relentlessly pursued by a powerful gang that physically and sexually abused her, threatened her with death, and murdered her loved ones. Jessica made it to Mexico and spent months trying to obtain a CBP One appointment. While waiting for an appointment to become available, Jessica was kidnapped by gang members. She escaped and eventually managed to secure an appointment in February 2025, which was also canceled on January 20, 2025.
Maria and Jessica, and Fernando are just two of the 30,000 asylum seekers whose lives have been imperiled as a result of the asylum shutdown policy. Our government has both a legal and moral imperative to restore access to asylum at ports of entry, honor existing CBP One appointments, and establish a fair and humane asylum process that respects the rights of people seeking safety. Our response to those stranded at our nation’s doorstep will determine not only the fate of thousands of vulnerable individuals but also define who we are as a nation.