JOURNALISM: Border Crossings Grind to Halt as Trump’s Tough Policies Take Hold.

In this border city, large groups of migrants marching toward the U.S. have all but halted. Migrant encampments are disappearing, and few people are trying to sneak across remote desert areas to start new lives in the U.S.

“The door is closed,” said Yorman Briceño, a Venezuelan migrant staying at a church-run shelter in Ciudad Juárez, just across from the border from El Paso, Texas.

He had been waiting about six months for his Jan. 23 appointment to request asylum in the U.S. under a Biden-era program, until it was scrapped by President Trump on Jan. 20. Now, after watching how others have been rounded up in immigration sweeps and extradited by the U.S. to a notorious prison in El Salvador, he said he wasn’t even sure he wanted to go anymore.

“There’s no more hope for entering legally as long as Donald Trump is there, and anyone telling you otherwise is lying,” said Briceño.

During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to shut the U.S. border to illegal immigration after surreptitious crossings reached record levels under the Biden administration.

As the issue featured prominently in the campaign, migrant encounters tallied by U.S. authorities fell precipitously in the months leading to the election. Since taking office, Trump has delivered on his pledge as encounters have since fallen further to their lowest levels since the 1960s.

Why does this WSJ report ostensibly about illegal immigration begin with a sad tale of an immigrant who has been trying to cross legally since before the election?