'I didn't want to leave my country:' Salvadoran woman seeking asylum shares heartbreaking journey

TIJUANA, Mexico (KABC) -- The immigration policy in the U.S. has changed again, but the needs of refugees and asylum seekers have not.

This week, a small group of people and families attended a weekly asylum workshop hosted by Al Otro Lado, a binational nonprofit that provides legal and humanitarian services.

"There's usually very little information that's directed toward the migrant community," explained Hollie Webb, the supervising attorney for the nonprofit's Border Rights Project. "So it's really important that we explain to people what's going on."

Last week, President Joe Biden issued an order that restricts access to asylum for migrants who cross into the U.S. in between ports of entry.

Under a new interim rule, the administration can bar asylum access when migrant encounters at the border reach a seven-day average of 2,500 or more. The rule is lifted two weeks after encounters drop to less than 1,500 for a week straight.

A harrowing reality and long journey ahead

ABC7 spoke with a woman named Carmen from El Salvador. Along the journey here, she and other women were raped at gunpoint.

"Different studies have said that the amount of women who are sexually assaulted ... the percentage along the way is somewhere around 80%," said Webb.

Carmen is fleeing the threat of imprisonment under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's war on gangs. She is accused of collaborating with gangs, but said the truth is gang members threatened and forced her to provide them with food.

"I didn't want to leave my country," she told ABC7. She hoped to live in El Salvador to take care of her mother, who is in her 90s.

But Carmen says she knows many people who were unjustly imprisoned and remain in inhumane conditions without medication and barely any food. Under Bukele's state of exception, many constitutional rights are suspended.

Flaws in a new online system

Carmen has been in Tijuana, Mexico, for two months and like others, is waiting for an appointment to seek asylum through CBP One, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection app that serves as a single portal to a variety of CBP services.

The app, however, is riddled with issues from its facial recognition not working on people with darker skin tones to language inaccessibility.

"I usually tell people that the app is translated into two and a half languages, because the Haitian Creole translation is so terrible," said Webb.

There are roughly 1,400 appointments issued daily across the entire border - about half at random. Al Otro Lado recently sued CBP over its inaccessibility for people with disabilities.

"There was a case of a woman from El Salvador, she's blind, she traveled with her two small children," said Paulina Olvera Cáñez, the executive director of Espacio Migrante, a transborder organization that offers a family shelter and supports migrants who do not speak Spanish through language and racial justice initiatives. "First, she couldn't fill out the process through the app, and then the facial recognition didn't recognize her face because she couldn't open her eyes."

Olvera Cáñez is also raising concerns over the conditions in Mexico, from the heavy militarization to the violence experienced by those waiting there.

"Kidnappings and many other forms of violence," she said. "So the truth is, even though some might choose or be forced to stay in Tijuana, it's not an option for everybody and some people experience great insecurity here."

An ABC7 data analysis found that for the second quarter of this year, the average number of daily encounters was 4,400.

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ABC News contributed to this report.