These kidnappings really concern me, specially since my in-laws are currently driving back to the states from Mexico so that Dad can have cataract surgery. They have been missionaries in southern Mexico since 1959, and make the border crossing every couple of years.
My mother is a truck driver and she won’t spend the night in Laredo unless she’s sure she can get locked inside the terminal lot with security. Her terminal down there is right up against the river.
A few months back I was on the phone with her when she was in Laredo. She held the phone out the window so I could here the firefight going on across the river. When I say firefight, I mean firefight with explosions and everything like a war zone. She said she thought she was seeing occasional tracer rounds ricochet off into the sky.