Washington: The impact was swift and severe, just as Donald Trump had intended.

No sooner had the newly inaugurated president signed his name on a raft of executive orders to crack down on illegal immigrants than the US-Mexico border was effectively closed off for migrants seeking asylum.

The impact of Trump’s new orders is already being felt.Credit: Bloomberg

Along the border, tens of thousands of people were suddenly in limbo after a Biden-era app that was used to schedule immigration appointments was turned off by the new administration.

“We don’t know what we are going to do,” said one distressed woman in Tijuana, where 400 people had previously been admitted through the San Diego border crossing daily by using the app.

In Washington, four top officials at the Justice Department’s Executive Office of Immigration Review – which oversees US immigration courts – were also fired unexpectedly, while policies limiting migrant arrests in “sensitive” locations such as schools and churches were quickly revoked.

And across the country, Trump’s mass deportation program began in earnest, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials authorised to conduct large-scale raids, prioritising “public safety threats”.

“ICE teams are out there as of today,” Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, told Fox News. “We’ve been working up the target list.”

At a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral on his second day in the job, Trump was petitioned by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde from the pulpit to show mercy on people who are “scared” of what is to come.

A group of deportees is repatriated to Nogales, Mexico, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration and executive order on immigration.Credit: Getty Images

“I ask you to have mercy. Mr President, on those in our communities whose children fear........

© The Sydney Morning Herald