MEXICALI, Mexico — Marlon, a 35-year-old man from Guatemala, used the CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) One app to schedule an appointment that would have allowed him to enter the U.S. at a port of entry.

His CBP One appointment was at 1 p.m. PT (4 p.m. ET) on Jan. 21 in the Mexican city of Tijuana that borders San Diego. Marlon at around 11 a.m. PT (2 p.m. ET) on Jan. 20 learned his appointment had been cancelled.

President Donald Trump took office less than two hours earlier.

“We’re stuck,” Marlon told the Washington Blade on Jan. 31 during an interview at Posada del Migrante, a migrant shelter in the Mexican border city of Mexicali that Centro Comunitario de Bienestar (COBINA), a group that serves LGBTQ people and other vulnerable groups, runs.

The Trump-Vance administration’s immigration policies have left Marlon and many other migrants and asylum seekers — LGBTQ and otherwise — in limbo.

Daniela is a 20-year-old transgender woman from Tijuana who has lived at Jardín de las Mariposas, a shelter for LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers in the city’s Obrera neighborhood, for a month. Jardín de las Mariposas is roughly six miles south of the Mexico-U.S. border.

She told the Washington Blade on Jan. 29 during an interview that she was raped in Hermosillo, the capital of Mexico’s Sonora state, four months ago. Daniela said her roommate and five other people later tried to kill her when they “were drunk and on drugs.”

Daniela, like Marlon, had a CBP One appointment, but it was cancelled once Trump took office.

“I am completely alone both in Tijuana and elsewhere,” said Daniela. “I think the United States is a better option to be able to start over.”

Stephanie, a 25-year-old from El Paraíso, Honduras who identifies as a lesbian, arrived in Tijuana last July and lives at Jardín de las Mariposas.

She told the Blade her family is “very religious,” and she is the “only one in my family who is a member of the (LGBTQ) community.” Stephanie said a cousin in Louisiana agreed to allow her to live with her once she entered in the U.S., but she refused once she saw she had cut her hair.

“I felt a bit of freedom once I arrived here in Mexico … and I decided to cut my hair because it was very long,” recalled Stephanie. “One day she did a video call and she saw my short hair and she was like I cannot receive you; I cannot receive you because what example are you going to be to my son.”

Trump, in addition to shutting down the CBP One app on Jan. 20, issued several immigration-specific executive orders after his inauguration. They include:

• Declaring a national emergency on the Southern border

• Suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

• Ending birthright citizenship under the 14th amendment. (U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who Ronald Reagan appointed, in a Jan. 23 ruling that temporarily blocked the directive described it as “blatantly unconstitutional.”)

Trump has reinstated the Migrant Protection Protocols program, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy that forced asylum seekers to pursue their cases in Mexico.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Tuesday said Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele during his meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio “agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” and “promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.” The Department of Homeland Security in a press release notes Tren de Aragua members were on the first U.S. military “flight of criminal aliens” that arrived at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba on Tuesday.

Jardín de Las Mariposas Director Jamie Marín on Jan. 29 told the Blade that Trump’s policies have sparked “a lot of fear.”

She said some of the shelter’s residents who had their CBP One appointments cancelled have either returned to their countries of origin or have found another way to enter the U.S., including with the help of smugglers who are known as “coyotes” in Mexican Spanish. Marín said Jardín de las Mariposas is working with those who have decided to stay in Tijuana to help them secure identity documents and employment.

“Our goal was to be a temporary shelter to move to the United States,” she told the Blade. “Now it’s almost becoming like we’re going to become a permanent shelter until we find another solution for them.”

Susy Barrales is president of Casita de Unión Trans, a trans support group that she founded in Tijuana in 2019 after she was deported from the U.S.

She told the Blade during a Jan. 30 interview at her office, which is a few blocks from the border, that two migrants who the U.S. deported arrived at Casa de Unión Trans the day before without medications. Barrales, like Marín, said the Trump’s immigration policies have sparked concern in Tijuana.

“He is doing this political campaign,” said Barrales in response to the Blade’s question about Trump’s policies. “I think it is something political, a political strategy that he wants to do, as a way to slow down immigration. This is why he makes these types of racist comments against migrants and against the community.”

Situation along Mexico-US border is ‘tense’

The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to suspend nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days has had a direct impact on Mexican organizations that serve LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers.

Casa Frida works with upwards of 300 LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants in Mexico City and in the cities of Monterrey and Tapachula. Sixty percent of Casa Frida’s annual budget comes from U.S. government grants — specifically from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.     

Casa Frida Director Raúl Caporal on Monday told the Blade the U.S. on Jan. 24 suspended funding for five of his organization’s initiatives.

A poster inside COBINA’s offices on Jan. 31 contained a QR code that brought migrants to a WhatsApp page that had information about how they could “migrate informed and legally.” The State Department partnered with Partners of the Americas, a Washington-based NGO, on the initiative.

Maky Pollorena, a Mexicali-based activist who works with COBINA, told the Blade the WhatsApp page stopped providing information on Jan. 24. Pollorena also said COBINA and the majority of migrant shelters in Mexico’s Baja California state of which Mexicali is the capital have lost between 50 and 70 percent of their funding.

“All of us who are in Baja California’s border strip are tense,” said COBINA President Altagracia Tamayo.

Marín noted Jardín de las Mariposas’ funding does not come from the U.S. government, but rather from the Transgender Law Center and other NGOs that include AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Ávila’s administration donated the building in which Jardín de las Mariposas is located. The International Organization for Migration, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration are also support Jardín de las Mariposas.

Despite this lack of dependence upon U.S. government funding, Marín said the Trump-Vance administration’s policies could prove deadly.

“These decisions from the Trump administration are going to cost a lot of lives for the LGBT community, not only here,” she said. “It’s also going to cost a lot of lives in the United States.”

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers is on assignment in Mexico to cover the impact that President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are having on LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers.

MEXICO CITY — The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days could force a Mexican organization that serves LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers to close.

Casa Frida works with upwards of 300 LGBTQ asylum seekers and migrants in Mexico City and in the cities of Monterrey and Tapachula.

Casa Frida Director Raúl Caporal on Monday told the Washington Blade during an interview at his Mexico City office that 60 percent of his organization’s annual budget comes from U.S. government grants — specifically from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and its Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Caporal said the U.S. on Jan. 24 suspended funding for five Casa Frida initiatives that specifically focused on “organizational strengthening, humanitarian assistance, financial inclusion, digital security” and fighting human trafficking.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the same day directed State Department personnel to stop nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for 90 days in response to an executive order that Trump signed on Jan. 20. Rubio last week issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the funding freeze.

“All of these (Casa Frida) services are now extremely limited and compromised because the suspension was immediate,” Caporal told the Blade.

He said Casa Frida has already laid off several staffers. Caporal also told the Blade the U.S. funds that remain in Casa Frida’s bank account may have to be returned to Washington.

“That implies many problems,” said Caporal. “It’s not only the continuity of our services, but it also puts the organization’s future at risk.”

Casa Frida has already laid off several staffers. Caporal told the Blade that he and his colleagues are working with the European Union, foreign governments, local officials, and private donors to find additional funding sources.

The waiver that Rubio issued notes it does not apply to “activities that involve abortions, family planning conferences” and “gender or DEI ideology programs, transgender surgeries, or other non-life saving assistance.”

Caporal said there is a chance the White House could extend the funding freeze in order to “review which international cooperation projects align or coincide with the current administration’s political interests.”

“We are quite certain that much of this aid is going to return,” he said. “But (Trump) since the campaign has made it very clear that nothing, not a single dollar for the LGBT community, or for sexual rights, reproductive rights, women, migrants.”

“It is therefore very possible that projects that have more to do with eliminating inequality gaps, poverty, urban development, etc., will return,” added Caporal. “But we are not waiting for these projects to be reactivated.”

Casa Frida is among the global LGBTQ organizations dependent upon U.S. support that have been left scrambling. The Blade is in touch with several of them that may have to curtail programming or even close if they cannot secure alternate funding sources.

The Blade will update this story.

Millions of people in Buenos Aires and across Argentina participated in marches against President Javier Milei in response to his controversial comments at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Buenos Aires march, led by LGBTQ, women’s and human rights organizations in Argentina, shaped up to be one of the largest demonstrations against Milei since he became president in December 2023. The mobilization is a direct response to Milei’s disparaging comments about feminism, LGBTQ rights, and other progressive movements.

Milei called “wokism” and “gender ideology” harmful during his Jan. 23 speech at the World Economic Forum, even comparing them to pedophilia. These statements sparked outrage across Argentina with protesters demanding the defense of human rights and equality.

María Rachid, president of the Argentine LGBT+ Federation, told the Washington Blade on Sunday “the march was massive, a strong message to President Milei putting a limit to hatred, discrimination and violence.”

“Argentine society built the values of respect for diversity, equality, and true freedom and yesterday it came out to defend them with massive demonstrations throughout the country and in many cities around the world,” said Rachid. “We are proud of what we were able to build because although they want to destroy it, it is already part of the heart of Argentine society.”

The Buenos Aires march began at the National Congress and ended at the Casa Rosada, the seat of the country’s presidency. Thousands of demonstrators, many with rainbow flags and banners that read “rights are not negotiable,” expressed their strong rejection of Milei’s policies.

Gay Congressman Esteban Paulón highlighted to the Blade “the call for the march was impressive.” 

“I think it exceeded any forecast, not only because of the massiveness in the City of Buenos Aires, where it is estimated more than a million people, but also because of the massiveness in the 150 cities in which it was held throughout the country,” he said. “The truth is that it was a very, very big march in Rosario, in Córdoba, in Santa Fe, in Mar del Plata, in Bariloche, in the north, in Salta.” 

“There was no expectation that it would be so, so massive, beyond the one in Buenos Aires, which had had an important call, an important visibility, which had added several actors,” added Paulón.

Sofía Díaz, a transgender woman who worked as a civil servant before Milei’s administration fired her, marched in Corrientes, a city in Chaco province.

“After President Milei’s speeches in Davos, the next day we started texting each other on WhatsApp,” she said, referring to public employees at the national level. “We were really afraid of what he had said.” 

Activists around the world expressed solidarity with their Argentine counterparts.

Marches took place in cities around the world — including in Santiago, Chile; Montevideo, Uruguay; Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo; Mexico City; London; Madrid; Amsterdam; Berlin; Geneva; Paris; New York; Lisbon, Portugal; and the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Granada.

The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ rights group, on Feb. 1 organized a march to the Argentine Embassy. Activists delivered a letter that expressed solidarity with the LGBTQ community and repudiated Milei’s policies against it.