Amritsar youth took six months to reach US; had to swim in sea, jumped fence

Jatinder Singh, 23, had to swim in sea waters, forced to eat non-vegetarian food despite being a baptised Sikh and crammed into a suffocating chamber on a boat for days on his journey to the US that took almost six months.

Jatinder, a son of a retired Army soldier, had left his home at Bandala village in Amritsar’s Jandiala area on September 18 last year.

He was caught on January 27 after he jumped a 25-foot-high iron wall to enter the US from Mexico, an effort during which several of his companions broke their limbs.

Jatinder said he wanted to go abroad ever since he completed Class 12 in 2021.

Before undertaking the US journey, he had applied for work permits of Canada and Australia but his visa applications were rejected.

On the advice of his friends, he cracked a deal with an immigration agent from Haryana for Rs 40 lakh, for which his father Gurbachan Singh had to sell one acre — the only piece of land he owned. Jatinder’s journey began on September 18 from Mumbai but instead of taking him directly to Mexico, the agent dropped him in Guyana on the northern coast of South America.

The agent then demanded Rs 20 lakh from his parents before proceeding further.

After arriving in Guyana, he and his companions travelled for two days by taxi to reach Brazil. From there, the agent directed them to reach Bolivia. Jatinder stayed in a donker’s house for 56 days in Bolivia, where he was forced to eat non-vegetarian food despite being an “amritdhari” Sikh. He was given only rice and meat to eat.

Later, the travel agent demanded $1,500 for the next leg of his journey to Nicaragua, said the youth.

The agent sent him on a dangerous boat journey through the Panama Canal. He was crammed with 40 people on to a boat meant for 15 people. On their journey a major storm struck the boat, but they luckily survived, he said.

“After reaching Panama, we stayed in a jungle for two days and then reached Panama City, where we lived for three days without internet or phone. We had only biscuits and bread to eat,” he said. From there, they reached Costa Rica, but now they had to cross deep rivers. “Donkers left me there, but I struggled hard to come out of the water,” he said. On January 27, Jatinder was arrested while crossing over to US from the Mexican border. He was taken to a detention centre in California. Jatinder said he kept without a turban and survived only on potato chips.