Trump expressed tears and shock when he saw the dream of immigrants from Mexico who were planning to enter the United States

By Lizbeth Diaz, Laura Gottesdiener and Alexandra Ulmer

TIJUNA, Mexico (Reuters) – Nydia Montenegro, who fled violence and poverty at home in Venezuela and survived a kidnapping while traveling north to Mexico, arrived in the U.S. border city of Tijuana on Sunday for an asylum appointment that will eventually reunite her. Her son lives in New York.

That appointment has now been cancelled.

As President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border, migrants waiting in Mexico anxiously checked the US government’s app, called CBP One, to make appointments to claim asylum. When they refreshed the app, a warning came up that said, “Existing appointments scheduled with CBP One are no longer valid.”

Panic filled the shelter in Tijuana, just across the border.

“I can’t believe it,” the 52-year-old Montenegro said with tears streaming down her cheeks. “No, my God, no.”

US border officials have confirmed that they have shut down the app and canceled existing appointments.

The Montenegrin is one of thousands of immigrants whose hopes of reaching the U.S. legally ended suddenly days and weeks before they were supposed to.

Around her, other refugees wept in despair as they repeatedly tried to install the app. Some received emails canceling their appointments, others got the alert, and some simply couldn’t open the app.

The move represents one of the first changes by the Trump administration, which comes as the president promised in his inaugural speech to send troops to the US-Mexico border, increase deportations and designate criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.

Reuters has followed Montenegro’s trip for two months, from excitement when she got an appointment for Wednesday, January 22 – two days after Trump took office – to disappointment that she missed it.

There were other similar scenes along the border.

In Ciudad Juarez, just outside of El Paso, Texas, CBP has received notice that one appointment scheduled for later Monday has been canceled.

“It’s over, they got rid of it,” said Margelis Tinoco, a Colombian who traveled with her husband and daughter. They “banned” her thirteen-year-old son. There is nothing we can do,” she said.

At Piedras Negras, across from Texas Eagle Pass, scheduled immigrants were being turned away. They grab backpacks and blankets as they rest against the wall, trying to figure out what to do next. Some sent tearful voicemails home.

For Montenegro, this is an unfortunate turn of events. She arrived in Tijuana on Sunday optimistic and eager to be reunited with her 24-year-old son, who she last saw a year ago, in New York. “Today my life starts again,” she told Reuters with a smile.

The day she arrived in southern Mexico from Guatemala last year, she was kidnapped along with two nephews and dozens of other children. Two days later, the group managed to escape, but since then she has been carrying the trauma of the accident.

She doesn’t know what to do now, trapped in a foreign city thousands of miles away from home and not far from the country where she intends to make a new life.

Still in shock, she couldn’t let go of the hope she carried after her appointment was confirmed. Even as she hears others returning from the border, she says, “I’m going to my appointment.”

(This story has been edited to correct the spelling of the city’s name to Piedras Negras, not Piedras Negro.)