From there, Vishal’s ordeal began in earnest — a gruelling journey that took him from Brazil to Colombia, then through Panama’s deadly jungle routes. “I walked for four days through the Panama forest, climbed three mountains, waded through neck-deep rivers, and heard the roars of wild animals at night,” he recalled. “I don’t know how I made it out alive. We saw dead bodies on the way. Women with babies were walking alongside us.”He eventually made it to Mexico after travelling through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, mostly by bus, paying for each leg with money wired by his younger brother back home. But in Mexico, Vishal’s journey took a terrifying turn when he was kidnapped by a group who claimed the agent had failed to pay them their promised cut. Held at gunpoint and confined in a building for nearly two months along with a few others, Vishal lived in constant fear.“One night, I decided to risk everything. I jumped off a second-floor balcony to escape,” he recalled. “One of them fired at me as I ran, but I didn’t stop. I just ran for my life and somehow got away.” Then he could find another agent who he paid R 5 lakh to be smuggled into the US in a pickup truck crowded with other migrants.“I squatted the entire 1,000-km journey, unable to move an inch,” he said. But just before reaching the U.S. border, their vehicle was intercepted. Vishal was arrested and imprisoned in Texas for 10 months.
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