Seeing a Central American surge, Mexicans join the asylum line at the US border
MATAMOROS, Mexico - Emma Sanchez waited patiently in line at the foot of a bridge leading across the Rio Grande and into Texas, one of tens of thousands of people stuck on Mexico's northern border seeking political asylum in the United States.
"They cut my husband to pieces and dumped his body by the road," Sanchez said matter-of-factly as she showed a visitor a link to a news article about the grisly demise of her spouse, a former taxi driver who, his widow said, refused to pay protection money to the local mob.
"Now I'm afraid they are coming after me and my kids," she added, explaining why she had fled to Matamoros with her four daughters.
It is the kind of haunting account heard frequently in this Mexican border town, where hundreds of Central American asylum-seekers who say they are fleeing gang violence await court dates in the United States. They mostly spend their days in a
