EL PASO, Jan 24: Venezuelan Josnexcy Martinez, who is staying at a shelter in a Texas border city, said she's afraid of getting swept up in a raid targeting migrants even though she entered the country legally.
President Donald Trump began his second term with a flurry of executive actions aimed at overhauling immigration into the United States.
He has signed orders declaring a "national emergency" at the southern border and announced the deployment of more troops to the area while vowing to deport "criminal aliens," moves that have spread fear across many communities.
Martinez, 28, is staying at a shelter in the city of El Paso with her five-year-old after entering the United States using the CBP One app.
The platform allowed migrants in Mexico to make an appointment with US officials at designated border crossings, where they could apply for temporary residency.
Trump cancelled the service on the first day of his new term.
Even though Martinez is entitled to stay in the United States until her asylum case is heard by a judge, she said Trump's actions have left her perpetually on edge.
"My fear is that I will be arrested in a raid, by a police officer or someone from immigration and that they will ask me for my papers," she said.
Martinez, who gently drew a sheet over her son in the bunk bed where he sleeps, also held up the ID given to her by US officials when she crossed, explaining that she always has it on her.
Karina Breceda, who runs the shelter where Martinez is staying, voiced concern that because of Trump's policies, "we're... going to start targeting people based on what we think a person that's undocumented looks like, based on the color of their skin, or their clothes."
In El Paso -- a city of 678,000 people where roughly 80 percent of the population is of Latin American origin -- Trump's actions have bred anger among some.
Mirna Cabral, 37, is a beneficiary of the DACA program launched during former president Barack Obama's administration that gave some undocumented migrants who arrived as minors temporary work permits, which must be renewed. —AFP