Trump rolls out his blueprint on border security moments after inauguration

Colombian migrant Margelis Tinoco, 48, cries after her CBP One appointment was cancelled at the Paso del Norte international bridge PictureL: Christian Chavez/AP)

US President Donald Trump rolled out a blueprint to beef up security at the southern border in a series of executive orders that began taking effect soon after his inauguration on Monday.

The move makes good on his defining political promise to crack down on immigration and marks another wild swing in White House policy on the divisive issue.

Some of the orders revived priorities from his first administration, which his predecessor had rolled back, including forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico and finishing the border wall.

Others launched sweeping new strategies, like an effort to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in America and ending the use of a Biden-era app used by nearly a million migrants to enter America.

Marcela Medina and her husband Enrique Corea of Venezuela react to seeing that their appointment was cancelled as they wait near the border crossing in Tijuana (Gregory Bull/AP)

The actual execution of such a far-reaching immigration agenda is certain to face legal and logistical challenges.

But in a concrete sign of how the changes quickly played out, migrants who had appointments to enter the US using the CBP One app saw them cancelled minutes after Mr Trump was sworn in. Mexico agreed to allow people seeking US asylum to remain south of the American border while awaiting their court cases.

“I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens to the places in which they came,” Mr Trump said in his inauguration speech to thunderous applause.