Migrants in Mexico face kidnappings, violence

MEXICO CITY, July 14 (New York Times): He waited 19 days for an appointment to apply for asylum in the United States, hoping to stay safe until his number came up.

It was a daunting challenge: He had to wait here in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo, a place where kidnappings, extortion, robbery and murder are common.

So the asylum-seeker, Jorge, who had made it this far from Cuba, used a simple strategy to stay out of harm's way. He never went outside.

He hunkered down in a migrant shelter until the appointed time to present himself to American border officials in Laredo, Texas.

Then, after his appointment this week, he was swiftly returned to the Mexican side of the border where, under a Trump administration policy, he has to wait until his next appointment with the American authorities - two months from now.

His personal security plan remains the same: Stay inside.

"I never lived the experience of crime here," said Jorge, 24, withholding his last name to protect his family in Cuba. "And I don't want to experience it, either."

This week, Nuevo Laredo became the latest city in Mexico to be added to a program, informally known as "Remain in Mexico." Under the policy, thousands of migrants, including many asylum-seekers, have been required to stay in Mexico while they await their immigration hearings in the United States.

The program was rolled out in January, with the Mexican government's cooperation, in an effort to take pressure off the U.S. detention system and dissuade migrants from making the trek to the United States.

Since then, more than 18,000 migrants, many of them asylum-seekers, have been returned to Mexico through border crossings in Tijuana, Mexicali and Ciudad Juárez - despite objections from human rights advocates who argue that the program is putting migrants at great risk in cities with high levels of violence.