US Pause Online Asylum Appointments At US Crossing After Extortion Warnings

The Biden administration has stopped taking mobile app appointments to admit asylum-seekers at a Texas border crossing that connects to a notoriously dangerous Mexican city after advocates warned US authorities that migrants were being targeted there for extortion.

US Customs and Border Protection gave no explanation for its decision to stop scheduling new appointments via the CBP One app for the crossing in Laredo, Texas.

Several asylum-seekers told The Associated Press that 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. Humanitarian groups in Laredo say they had recently warned CBP of the problems and that certain groups were controlling access to the international crossing on the Mexican side.

Migrant advocates say the situation in Nuevo Laredo, which is plagued by cartel fighting and other problems, 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.

Rafael Alvarez, 29, who fled Venezuela, said that after he landed in Nuevo Laredo in early June, Mexican immigration authorities at the airport seized his travel documents, including a printout of the email confirming his CBP One appointment, and demanded he pay 1,000 Mexican pesos, about $57. He was held with other migrants.

“They would tell us covertly, ‘You’re going to put the money in this envelope and pass it to us,’” Alvarez said, recalling what officials told him and other migrants.

The officials, he said, threatened to hold them so they would have their appointments canceled. Alvarez, whose appointment was the next day, said he refused to pay and was eventually released, but five Russians who were held with him paid a total of 5,000 pesos, about $290. They initially were asked to fork over double that amount, but they told officials they did not have that much, he said.

Alvarez said other Venezuelan friends who flew to Nuevo Laredo in late May also paid to have their documents returned.

Thousands of asylum-seekers are stuck in Mexican border towns, waiting until they can get an appointment to seek refuge in the United States after being blocked during the COVID-19 pandemic by a public health restriction called Title 42 that was lifted last month.

Though the government opened some new avenues for immigration, the fate of many people is largely left to the CBP One app that is used for scheduling an appointment at a port of entry.

The government said it would continue to open 1,250 appointments daily by reallocating the slots for Laredo to the seven other crossings along the US-Mexico border. It vowed to honor online appointments issued for the Laredo crossing before the June 3 change. The government schedules appointments two weeks out.

CBP gives priority to people with an app appointment, though people can try to be admitted by going in person without one. Anyone who has an acute medical condition or is under an immediate threat of kidnapping or death also can ask to be admitted in person.

Laredo was among the least busy crossings for asylum appointments, seeing only a fraction of appointments compared to San Diego and Brownsville.

There have been widespread complaints by migrants about being forced to pay bribes to Mexico’s immigration sector, where corruption is deeply ingrained.