Politics
With hopes for asylum in U.S. dashed, migrants in Tijuana ponder next moves
Haitian migrants are among those staying at the Albergue Assabil shelter in Tijuana. Many Haitians, who fled gang violence in their homeland, have been in limbo, living at the shelter since the U.S. immigration crackdown.
TIJUANA — When the Russian man arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border on March 1, he knew he was too late. Still, he held on to hope that even with President Trump in office he could be let into the United States to seek asylum.
Slavik, a 37-year-old engineer, said he fled Russia after being beaten by security forces for supporting the opposing political party. He had hoped to meet U.S. immigration officials to apply for asylum, he said, and has friends willing to sponsor him.
Alicia Ayala, with Agape For All Nations Ministries International, shaves the head of Russian migrant Slavik, 37, at the Albergue Assabil shelter in Tijuana.
Instead, he spent weeks at a shelter for migrants in Tijuana as he mulled over what to do next.
“I just tried to do by rules and wait,” said Slavik, who asked to be identified by his nickname for fear of retribution. “There is nothing else now. All immigration will be illegally.”
In Tijuana, thousands of migrants such as Slavik had tried to secure an appointment with immigration officials through a Biden administration phone application, but Trump canceled the program, in effect blocking access to asylum. Many have since left the region.
With no way to legally enter the U.S., the mood among migrants still in Tijuana has shifted from cautious optimism to hopelessness. Shelters are no longer full, and directors say those who remain are among the most vulnerable.
Making matters worse, funding cuts by the Trump administration to the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, have brought some shelters to the brink of closure, tightened others’ budgets and significantly reduced migrant healthcare services. Enduring organizations now struggle to fill the gaps.
“As lawyers, we want to give people solutions, but there are none now,” said Lindsay Toczylowski, co-founder and chief executive of the Los Angeles-based Immigrant Defenders Law Center. She visits Tijuana shelters a few times a month. “It’s them asking a lot of questions and us saying, ‘I’m so sorry.’”
Haitian migrants stay at the Albergue Assabil shelter in Tijuana. The center serves mostly Muslim migrants but also people from all over the world.
Although illegal border crossings are down to a trickle, Toczylowski and other advocates believe they will eventually begin to increase.
Slavik fled his homeland in 2022, first living in Turkey and Georgia before realizing that, as Russian allies, those countries weren’t safe.
He can’t go back to Russia, where he would be considered a terrorist sponsor for donating to the campaign of Alexei Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s biggest political rival, who died under suspicious circumstances last year.
But staying in Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America would be difficult, Slavik said, because he doesn’t speak Spanish. He speaks basic English and has considered going to Canada, but friends told him it’s difficult as well to obtain asylum there.
Now Slavik is starting to feel like he has no other choice but to try to get into the U.S. illegally.
“Maybe this is one chance,” he said. “If a lot of people do it, then maybe I can do it.”
Slavik stayed at Albergue Assabil, a shelter that serves mostly Muslim migrants. Director Angie Magaña said half of the 130 people living there before the U.S. presidential election in the fall have since left. Many went back to their home countries — including Russia, Haiti, Congo, Tajikistan and Afghanistan — despite the dangers they could face. Others went to Panama, she said.
On a recent Friday, the shelter was bustling. Haircuts were being offered in the courtyard. A truck pulled up outside, and residents helped carry in cases of donated bottled water. Inside the community center, those having breakfast and tea cleared the tables as members of a humanitarian organization arrived to play games with the children.
Angie Magaña, left, director of the Albergue Assabil shelter in Tijuana, waits for a delivery of donated items.
Magaña said she’s frank with those who remain: “Most people have the hope that something will happen. I tell them their best bet is to get asylum here” in Mexico.
Toczylowski said this administration differs substantially from Trump’s first term, when she could seek humanitarian entry for particularly desperate cases, such as a woman fleeing a dangerous relationship. Now whenever a woman says her abuser has found her and she asks Toczylowski what she can do, “it’s the first time in my career that we can say, ‘There’s no option that exists for you.’”
In the weeks after the phone app for border appointments was eliminated, Toczylowski brought vulnerable families, including those with children who have disabilities, to the San Ysidro port of entry.
She said a Border Patrol agent told them there was no process to seek asylum and turned them away.
The U.S. military has added layers of concertina wire to six miles of the border fence near San Ysidro.
“Ideally, it deters them from crossing” illegally, said Jeffrey Stalnaker, acting chief patrol agent of the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector. “We would rather have them enter at a port of entry, where it’s much safer, and hopefully this guides them in that direction.”
He did not address the fact that the government has essentially stopped considering asylum requests at ports of entry. Toczylowski said that in her experience, limited exceptions have been made for unaccompanied children.
Migrant Haitians stay at the Albergue Assabil shelter in Tijuana. Many Haitians, who fled gang violence in Haiti, have been in limbo, living at this Muslim shelter since the U.S. immigration crackdown.
The halting of USAID funds is also transforming life at the border. On his first day in office, Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order freezing U.S. foreign aid payments for 90 days, pending a review of efficiency and alignment with foreign policy. The order says foreign aid is “not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”
An April 3 report by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute found that up to $2.3 billion in migration-related grants appear on leaked lists shared with Congress of terminated foreign aid from USAID and the State Department. Among the funding — which provided humanitarian assistance, countered human trafficking and enabled refugee resettlement — was $200 million focused specifically on deterring migration from Central America.
The fallout from the cuts has already begun, the report states. For instance, the government of Ecuador used the withdrawal of foreign aid to justify rescinding amnesty for Venezuelan migrants, which could have dissuaded some from continuing north toward the United States.
In Tijuana, Trump’s order led to the closure of a health and social services clinic called Comunidad AVES. A longtime shelter called Casa del Migrante is now on the brink of closure after USAID-funded organizations scaled back their support, leaving its leaders on a desperate search for replacement funding.
Midwife Ximena Rojas and her team of two doulas run a birthing center and offer sexual and reproductive care to migrants.
Midwives Xanic Zamudio, left, and Ximena Rojas sit with Rojas’ children next to a birthing tub they use in Rojas’ home in Tijuana. Since healthcare services for migrants have shut down, the midwives have been overwhelmed with requests for services such as prenatal care, family planning and pregnancy tests.
Rojas sees 20 patients a day, three days a week. Her services are crucial: Many of the women she sees have never had a Pap smear and some were sexually assaulted on the migration route.
With the closure of AVES and concerns about Casa del Migrante — which has a partnership with the Tijuana government for weekly doctor visits — Rojas said the pressure is mounting on her small operation to somehow expand its reach.
“We are at max capacity,” she said. “We need an army.”
Rojas said she’s considering opening a food bank for migrants to make up for the loss of U.S.-government supported assistance.
“Our goal is to diminish infant death, also maternal death. The best way to do it is with nutrition,” Rojas said. “I give them a prenatal vitamin every day, but if they are eating [only] a banana a day, it’s like, a vitamin can only do so much.”
Many shelters counted on funds from the International Organization for Migration for groceries. At Espacio Migrante, the money paid for imported ingredients that allowed families from countries such as Russia and Uzbekistan to cook religiously or culturally appropriate meals.
At La Casita de Union Trans, a shelter for transgender women, the 6,000 pesos the facility got each month (about $300) went toward basic necessities — eggs, cooking oil and milk.
Susy Barrales is the director of La Casita de Union Trans, a shelter for transgender women in Tijuana. The shelter is currently houses five transgender migrants.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
But director Susy Barrales said U.S. politics won’t stop trans women from seeking safety, or the shelter trying to support them.
“I want the girls to study, to obtain a profession, so they can confront anything that comes their way — because I’ve done it,” said Barrales, who is studying for a social work license. “We are going to keep striving.”
Shelter residents include Miranda Torres, 31, a hairstylist who fled Venezuela in July after she was raped by strangers and police refused to investigate. She said the assault infected her with HIV. Venezuela’s ongoing economic collapse meant she had no access to treatment.
Torres said she walked north through the Darien Gap, a dangerous 60-mile stretch of jungle that straddles the border dividing Colombia and Panama, where she was sexually assaulted again.
Venezuelan migrant Miranda Torres, 31, cries as she recalls the violence she endured while traveling from her homeland to Tijuana. She has been staying at La Casita de Union Trans.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, she was diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and went through surgery and chemotherapy. She now bears a round scar on her neck and covers her bald head with a wig.
After taking time to recover, Torres finally arrived in Tijuana in December, where she slept atop a cardboard box on the street while making repeated and increasingly dangerous attempts to enter the U.S.
Unable to secure an appointment through the phone app, she went to the San Ysidro port of entry, waiting outside for four days to speak with an agent. She was turned away and then detained by Mexican immigration officials before being released because of her health conditions.
Torres said men belonging to a criminal group began to target her, saying they would harm her if she didn’t cross the border. So she attempted to climb the border fence but was too weak to hoist herself up. Then they told her to swim around the fence that extends into the Pacific Ocean. She nearly drowned.
Now, Torres has given up on the U.S. and is applying for asylum in Mexico.
“My dreams are in my head, not in any particular country,” she said, seated on a bunk bed in one of La Casita’s two bedrooms while Chappell Roan’s hit “Pink Pony Club” played from someone’s phone in the living room.
“If they’re not possible in the U.S., I’ll make them happen here.”
Dessire López walks back inside La Casita de Union Trans in Tijuana. López is a health advocate at the shelter.
President Trump has promoted a chain of newly rebranded gas stations across the Philadelphia area with lower gas prices. The New York Times has not been able to get detailed information about who is behind the stations. The Trump administration says it did not fund or subsidize the company.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Kelley Paul is no stranger to the American political scene. As the wife of Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and the daughter-in-law of longtime former Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), she has seen her fair share of the campaign trail, emerging as a powerful surrogate during her husband’s 2016 presidential run.
She is also an accomplished writer, speaker, and public relations professional. As America ushers in its 250th anniversary, Paul saw the perfect opportunity to branch out into the world of children’s literature. Recently she sat down with Fox News Digital in Las Vegas at Freedom Fest to discuss her new book, “Good Night, Young American.”
Kelley Paul is the wife of Sen. Rand Paul and author of two books. (Courtesy Kelley Paul)
Paul credits her family for giving her the inspiration for the new project:
“I have to give a lot of credit to my daughter-in-law, Kate. She and our son were over for dinner last summer with our grandson, who was only six months old at the time. And Kate was like, you know, we need more patriotic books for babies. She wasn’t really happy with a lot of the book options she was seeing. And that night at dinner, we kind of played around with some ideas. And I came up with ‘Good Night Young American.’ And a year later, here it is.”
EXCLUSIVE: RAND AND KELLEY PAUL OPEN UP ABOUT 2016 RACE
“Good Night, Young American,” recommended for children ages 4–8, takes kids on a visually and thematically engaging journey through early and colonial history.
“Well, our revolutionary history is such a great adventure, right? So when I came up with the concept that my little boy would start out on the 4th of July with his parents, asking, what is it all about? I knew we’d be celebrating the 250th. Kids ask, what are we really celebrating?
And his dad describes the Declaration of Independence to him in the signing. So I tried to think what is going to appeal to children in this great adventure of our revolution. So when he falls asleep that night, he’s in the crow’s nest of the Mayflower. He is a pilgrim, he’s a colonist, and then he makes friends with all the great revolutionary heroes that we know. So he makes friends with Sam Adams, he joins the Sons of Liberty, he meets at the Green Dragon. This is so exciting for children, right?
It’s visual stuff. He makes friends with Ben Franklin, and he’s flying the kite. Dramatically rides on the midnight ride with Paul Revere. He and his dog, his little dog, are with him for all the adventures. And of course, he crosses the Delaware with George Washington. And I wanted to make the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of it something that was dynamic and exciting visually. So I have him swinging on the Liberty Bell when the declaration is signed.”
Paul worked closely with the illustrator, Marika Monesi, to bring the events of America’s founding to life in an engaging and visually appealing way for children.
The Liberty Bell, originally saved from the British by Lynnport farmer Frederick Leaser, sits in its Philadelphia shrine. (iStock)
“She really captured the excitement on the little boy’s face, his personality, but I worked very close with her,” Paul said. “I wanted there to be a lot of movement, a lot of dynamic images. So, for example, with the Liberty Bell, for kids, a bunch of men standing around writing a document…I wanted to bring it to life. So I said, let’s have him running up to the top of the bell tower in Philadelphia at Freedom Hall and swinging on the Liberty Bell. And she was just such a great artist. With the George Washington scenes, he’s crossing the Delaware because that, again, is so visual. I wanted drive home to children the incredible bravery and courage of our founders, how cold and miserable and hard that war was.
“Also, I love the illustration that she did of the King of England reading the Declaration of Independence. I have to give my husband Rand a little credit there. On the first couple of drafts that she did, Rand was like, ‘He needs to be fatter. King George was famously fat!’ So it was a lot of fun. It was very collaborative.”
KELLEY PAUL ‘EXHAUSTED AND ANGRY’ THAT THOSE WHO HARASSED HER AND HER HUSBAND FACE NO CHARGES
Part of Paul’s motivation for the book was related to the teaching of American history today, and the controversies therein:
“I do think that we’ve gotten away from really celebrating our founders and our heroes. What they were doing in 1776 was incredibly radical, if you think about it. At that time, everyone accepted the divine right of kings. Everyone accepted hereditary rule. And our founders took Enlightenment ideas from John Locke and philosophers, and they turned it into the framework for a government. The idea of self-government and that our rights come from our Creator, that we have inalienable rights that are given to us by God and not from a king. Those were radical ideas of the time.
Historians say an early draft of the Declaration of Independence offered new insight into how Thomas Jefferson refined the nation’s founding document. (Stock Montage/Stock Montage/Getty Images)
I like to say our founders were the first civil rights heroes, the first civil libertarians. And I think our education system has gotten away from that. They don’t view them in the time that they existed, and suddenly now everything is oppressor versus oppressed narrative. And they are labeled more like colonizers or enslavers, and that’s the only view that they’re looked at, and not as human beings who sacrificed their very lives to write the Declaration of Independence, to form this country…it was an incredible, bold, and courageous act, but it was also an act of moral courage and philosophical courage.”
Ultimately, Paul hopes that her books will stimulate the natural curiosity of America’s youth to learn more about their rich history:
Participants carry the City of Cumberland’s “America 250” parade banner down Baltimore Street during the America 250 parade in downtown Cumberland, Maryland, on June 27, 2026. Spectators line both sides of the street as American and Maryland flags lead the procession. (Fox News Digital/ David Marcus)
“Well, I hope that my books, especially with America’s 250, will spark a lot of questions and that they will give a framework for parents to talk to their kids about the founding of this country. And I hope children from a very, very young age will come away with this idea that they are a part of America’s story, that they as Americans can take pride in the heroism of our revolutionary founders. That as Americans, this is all of our story. So that’s really my goal with the books.”
One of the biggest challenges Paul faced was taking big ideas that may be hard for a four or five-year-old to grasp, like the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution, and distilling them down into an accessible format for kids:
“Well, I try to use language that kids could understand, and very much use simple terms. But if you think about it, it is simple. Our rights come from God. And when he makes friends with Thomas Jefferson, he says, Thomas Jefferson has written this amazing document that says that we can all be free to live our lives the way we choose, and no government can take our rights to, you know, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness away from us.
He also talks about James Madison and the Bill of Rights and the most important right is freedom of speech. That is that no government can tell you what to say or what not to say.”
Rand Paul, who famously puts Constitutional principles front and center in the public square, also played a key role in the book’s thematic development.
Kelley Paul and her husband Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul. (Courtesy Kelley Paul)
“Rand has been incredibly supportive. I’m just so grateful and blessed to have had an amazing, now 36-year marriage to Rand Paul. And he was very involved. He would read over the drafts and gave me a lot of, like I said, good advice about things in history that he thought I should include.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
And I’m also just very grateful to be the daughter-in-law of Ron Paul. And so, I wanted these books to be there for our little grandson who I call ‘my favorite little American’ and help him from an early age be educated in the legacy that, the Paul family has in this country.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump dismissed all remaining members of the bipartisan U.S. Elections Assistance Commission this week, his latest move to assert control over national elections in the final months before midterm voting.
The White House defended the move as justified by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision handing the president greater authority to reshape independent government agencies, including by replacing appointed leaders.
Democrats and some independent elections experts blasted it as politically motivated, counter to the interests of voters and foolhardy with the November election so close.
“Purging commissioners just months before the midterm elections and further gutting support for our state and local elections officials is a blatant part of his plan to politicize our elections and enable more unlawful and dangerous election interference,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections.
Padilla alleged the dismissals are an attempt by Trump “to dismantle yet another independent guardrail of our democracy designed to keep elections fair and secure.”
A White House official framed the dismissals in starkly different terms, saying the departing commissioners were “not totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted.” It did not say when the president planned to appoint new commissioners.
The four-member commission was created by Congress in 2002 as part of the Help America Vote Act to help states improve their voting systems and voter access. By law, no more than two commissioners may belong to the same political party.
Historically, it has provided voluntary guidance and best practices for voting systems, and served as a sort of clearinghouse for election performance around the country — so that states and localities can learn from one another.
Since 2018, the panel has also disbursed more than $1 billion in election security grants, according to a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Those grants are then used to protect IT systems from foreign and domestic cyberattacks, update voting systems, ensure the accuracy of voter rolls and protect the integrity of ballots after they are cast.
Without leadership, the panel cannot take any official action until new members are nominated and confirmed by the Senate.
Benjamin W. Hovland, one of the Democratic commissioners removed by Trump, told NBC News that taking away a key federal agency designed to help state and local election administrators will have a negative effect on already strained elections officials.
“When you’re asking more and more of people without giving them the necessary resources, you know, mistakes happen,” he said.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, in a statement to The Times, said Trump was “injecting unnecessary chaos, confusion and instability into the very systems that Americans rely on to make their voices heard,” but that California “will not be intimidated or deterred” from maintaining elections “in which everyone can fairly and securely participate.”
California Atty. Gen Rob Bonta — whose office has already blocked federal agencies from implementing most of Trump’s election orders in court — called Trump’s firings “deeply troubling,” and said his office “will continue to closely monitor any efforts to weaken our democracy and fight back with every tool at our disposal.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said on X that “Newsom’s election protection efforts become more important by the day” — a reference to his recent push for state legislation that would make it a felony in California for anyone to seize ballots before a vote has been certified.
Newsom had said Thursday that Trump’s efforts to seize control over elections represented a “five-alarm fire” that must be confronted.
Trump’s dismantling of the commission comes as he wages a much broader campaign to rewrite voting rules. He has sought to place new restrictions on mail ballots, to tighten voter ID and proof of citizenship requirements for voters, to subject state voter rolls to federal oversight and purges, and to assert federal control over how and whether the U.S. Postal Service delivers mail ballots.
Much of that agenda, pushed through executive orders and other administrative actions, has been stymied by the courts, while stalling out in Congress, where it lacks support.
Whether Trump’s move to dismantle and reconstitute the commission will prove an effective path to instituting his election agenda remains unclear, experts said.
David Becker, the executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, said the election commission has always had a “very limited mandate,” can’t dictate policy to the states and has no law enforcement powers — meaning Trump’s dismissals will have little real effect on elections.
Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, wrote that Trump could try to illegally direct the commission to “do his bidding” by amending the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship — though that would also have limited effect and would be challenged in court.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Trump’s firing of the commissioners was part of a broader effort by the president to “sow distrust in our voting system so he can contest the results if they are not to his liking.”
Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said California has “the most robust standards” for elections in the country, which won’t change with the removal of the commissioners.
Still, she said word of the firings rocketed around a conference of county elections officials in San Diego on Thursday — with some wondering whether the dismissals would threaten federal election funding, and others lamenting the loss of the ousted commissioners’ deep experience.
Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office, said in a statement to The Times that “any sudden change to the support structure for elections in the middle of an election cycle is concerning,” but that California “has a strong local and state foundation for election administration and voting systems support, and that will minimize any potential disruption caused by this action.”
In recent months, Trump has leveraged federal agencies to overhaul the nation’s voting rules in ways no previous president has attempted.
He has repeatedly pressured Republican lawmakers to pass a federal law that would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when they register, show identification when casting a ballot and force states to send voter data to the Department of Homeland Security.
Republican leaders have said the proposed SAVE America Act does not have enough votes to pass in the Senate. The GOP resistance has angered Trump, who on Friday said he was refusing to sign a bipartisan housing bill in protest.
The housing bill, which Trump called a “big yawn” last month, was to become law at midnight Friday without Trump’s signature.
-
Texas6 minutes agoTexas Rangers investigating City of Trinidad after water issues, controversial arrests, firings
-
Utah9 minutes agoPresident Trump expected to reduce the size of Utah monuments
-
Vermont14 minutes agoVermont marks fourth straight year of July flooding as recovery drags on
-
Virginia21 minutes agoVance leasing part of multimillion-dollar Virginia farm as an additional residence | CNN Politics
-
Washington24 minutes agoWashington State Democratic Party draws criticism over reparations, antisemitism language
-
Wisconsin29 minutes agoWhat’s new to eat and drink at the 2026 Wisconsin State Fair?
-
West Virginia36 minutes agoWest Virginia to launch school clothing allowance program
-
Wyoming39 minutes agoElection Q&A: Laurie Longtine for Wyoming House District 59
