‘American dream turned nightmare; went days without food’
Narrating his ordeal Ankit said, “I went to Mumbai on November 8 from where I caught a flight for Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I had a legal tourist visa for Schengen. From Amsterdam, I went to Spain via air and then moved to Guyana.”
25-year-old Ankit Kumar from Sonepat’s Farmana village shared the nightmare he went through to live the “American Dream”. Ankit said that he sold a portion of his land and spent ₹50 lakh to go to the US ‘legally on tourist visa’ and alleged that the agent had cheated him. He decided to go to the US after he lost his father, who was the sole breadwinner of the family, two and a half years ago.
Narrating his ordeal Ankit said, “I went to Mumbai on November 8 from where I caught a flight for Amsterdam in the Netherlands. I had a legal tourist visa for Schengen. From Amsterdam, I went to Spain via air and then moved to Guyana.”
“On the way more people joined me, and we moved to Brazil where we stayed for three days. After crossing Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, we landed in Colombia. We reached Panama forest on a boat, which was almost capsized several times, but we survived,” he added.
“After crossing the forest area, we boarded a canter and reached Panama City. Then we moved to Costa Rica reaching Mexico after crossing countries like Honduras and Guatemala. We had travelled in a canter for 14 hours to reach Mexico without food. From there, we reached the Tijuana border,” he said.
“This was not all, our clothes and money were stolen and agents started demanding more money,” Ankit added.
Once at the border Ankit said that he was arrested by the US border patrol in January when he was about to enter California.
“I went to the US to improve the financial condition of my debt-ridden family. I was mentally tortured by the US police, and I stayed in a detention centre for a month. I used to get chips and rice at 6 am and 2 in the afternoon. I was not given a blanket in the detention centre. The entire journey was risky, and the agent has ruined my life. I thought my life would change for the better when I reached the US, but it had become a living hell,” Ankit said.
He shuddered at the thought of having to face social stigma. “I am scared that people will tease me and make fun of me for my failure on social media,” he said.
‘Were handcuffed and shackled’
24-year-old Gaganpreet, a resident of Digoh village in Fatehabad was among the 104 ‘illegal immigrants’ whom the US deported in Punjab’s Amritsar on Wednesday, said that all the deportees (males and females both) aged above 18 were handcuffed and feet shackled.
“The US security officials had removed handcuffs and shackles of women nearly 30-40 minutes before the landing of a US military C-17 transport aircraft. We had no idea that we were being deported. All of us thought that the security officials were shifting us to another detention centre. After two-hours of aircraft journey from the USA, the officials told us that they are shifting us to India. The aircraft was stopped at two places for refuelling. The security officials did not allow us to stand while citing safety protocol. Handcuffs were not removed even when we wanted to drink water. The US officials have violated human rights and treated us like criminals,” he added.
