Nuevo Laredo

“I believe the Mexican government’s strategy is to prevent large numbers of people from being seen at the border, because that would reflect poorly on the Trump administration,” said Esther Gutiérrez, who runs Casa Nazareth shelter in Nuevo Laredo.

The hardest blow life dealt Lozano was at the age of 17, when she found her grandmother dead in her home in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico — something that put her in “a hole she felt she could never get out of.”

Lozano and her mother had not heard from her grandmother for days, so they decided to visit her in Nuevo Laredo.

In the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo, a shadowy group that local media reports link to the dominant Northeast drug cartel has put up posters claiming one mayoral candidate is linked to the rival Gulf drug cartel.

Minutes after arriving at the airport on the Mexico side of the border in Nuevo Laredo — a cartel hub notorious for shake-downs and abductions of migrants — Guerrero said he and his wife and son were shoved into a vehicle and taken to a cartel safe house.