This is how a Venezuelan father experienced his entry into the US before the end of Title 42

(Trends Wide) — “Welcome to America.”

This was the greeting that Enderson Amaya Blanco dreamed of hearing after traveling thousands of miles through dangerous and deadly terrain for a chance at freedom in the United States.

The young father is one of thousands of migrants who turned themselves in to border authorities two days before Title 42 expired, a Trump-era policy put in place at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed authorities to quickly remove to migrants at the land borders of the United States.

Blanco, 21, looks more like a teenager than a father of two young children: thin, with a shock of mop-cut curls that bounce when he talks.

She says she decided to risk her life walking through the jungle and desert because she couldn’t feed her children in Venezuela.

“I came for my family, especially for my children,” Blanco told Trends Wide. “It’s hard when your children ask you for a plate of food and you can’t give it to them.”

Venezuelan migrant Enderson Amaya Blanco shows the bracelets assigned throughout the detention process, which include his reservation number, his vaccination status against covid-19 and other information. (Photo: Norma Galeana/Trends Wide)

Blanco and his father-in-law traveled on foot, by train, and sometimes by bus. To support themselves, they depended on handouts from kind strangers along the way.

Finally, they arrived at the door of their possible dream: El Paso, Texas. There they slept on the street for days last week, until they were encouraged to turn themselves in to US Border Patrol agents.

“We were very afraid. Very afraid,” Blanco said. “We didn’t know if we were going to move on (or) they were going to send us back.”

Blanco was detained, fingerprinted, and then taken to a detention center where he spent four days inside a compound with 433 other men.

“I was number 327,” he said, pointing to his wrist where the color-coded bracelets from the detention center had been stacked.

Blanco said the first thing he and his father-in-law did when they arrived at the detention center was shower. Then they were given a change of clothes and food (a burrito, an orange, and a bottle of water).

“And this, a blanket,” he said, holding up an emergency aluminum foil blanket still wrapped in a Ziploc bag.

“We just slept curled up, on a little mat for those who got one,” Blanco said. “Some of us just slept on the floor.”

With their fates in limbo, Blanco and his father-in-law waited at the detention center, which the young man said resembled a jail. They were fed three times a day and vaccinated against covid-19 during their stay.

“The second day they vaccinated us,” Blanco said. “When they vaccinated you, they gave you a yellow bracelet.”

After that, all he could do was wait.

For several days, Blanco watched as some migrants were escorted out of the facility in handcuffs, a telltale sign that they were on their way to deportation.

“Every day there is a list, but what you don’t know is where the list goes,” Blanco said. Some would be allowed to continue their pursuit of the American dream, while others faced imminent deportation.

“We were very nervous. But we distracted ourselves by praying, putting all our faith in God,” Blanco said. “(He) asked him to intervene because we didn’t want to be deported.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said it has conducted multiple removal flights since Title 42 expired Thursday. The flights have gone to Colombia, El Salvador and Honduras as part of dozens of repatriations carried out by the agency each week, ICE said.

After four days of waiting, Blanco’s name came off a list on Friday. He said that she felt “every emotion”.

“When I heard my name being called, my heart was pounding out of my chest,” he said. “I didn’t know. Would it be a yes? Would it be a no? I wanted to cry and laugh.”

Blanco said he and 10 other people on the list were put in another room and told to wait a little longer. They stood in single file, hands behind their backs.

“We passed in front of a table where there were some handcuffs and they sat us down,” Blanco said.

“When we saw the handcuffs, we thought they were putting them on us. We thought that if they put the handcuffs on us, we were finished. We turned back.”

It was then that Blanco heard the words he had been dreaming of: “‘Welcome to the United States. Here is your permit, your papers. You can travel.'”

Blanco’s papers say he must appear before a judge at a specific location, which is a requirement before trying to get a work permit, he said.

Meanwhile, Blanco needed to figure out how to cover his basic needs: a place to sleep and a bite to eat.

That night I had nowhere to sleep. Blanco said he would likely sleep on the street next to Sacred Heart Church, where thousands of migrants took refuge before Title 42 expired late last week.

He said he would wait for the release of his father-in-law – who was still in the detention center – before coming up with a plan for what to do next.

Blanco also had no mobile phone: it was stolen when he crossed the treacherous Darien Gap, a 100-kilometre stretch of roadless mountainous rainforest that connects South and Central America.

But he said two items he was given at the detention center would help him survive: the emergency aluminum foil blanket and an orange he decided to keep, just in case.

Blanco said he doesn’t think many people understand what it’s like to be in his plight and choose the path that he and many others have chosen.

“We have fought for this. Maybe some think this is easy,” he said. “It’s not easy. You have to live it to understand it.”

Blanco is aware of the long legal road ahead of her as her immigration case moves through the courts. But he hopes to get to Denver – where he heard they had “nice shelters” – and then go to Chicago, where he has friends, Blanco said.

“I just have to keep working, save enough money for travel tickets,” he said. “Move on, little by little. And with that permission, I feel like… there are so many great things ahead.”

Trends Wide’s Holly Yan contributed to this article.