US Suspends Online Asylum Appointments at Texas Border Crossing Over Extortion Threats.

The US has stopped taking mobile app appointments for asylum-seekers at a Texas border crossing that connects to a dangerous Mexican city after advocates warned that migrants were being targeted there for extortion. Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, had threatened to hold them and make them miss their scheduled asylum appointments unless they paid them. The situation in Nuevo Laredo casts doubt on the administration’s argument that Mexico is a safe place for the record number of people fleeing violence in Central America and elsewhere.