Jungles, cartels and robbery: A Cuban immigrant’s journey

The number of Cuban migrants coming to El Paso continues to rise.

Officials with the Houchen Community Center tell ABC-7 100 migrants stayed there Wednesday night.

Thursday morning 75 were bused out of El Paso to Miami. The remaining 25 are still trying to work out their plans.

Another 88 migrants were expected to cross the border by Friday morning.

If you take a look at the Houchin Center you might say everything seems normal.

A few people chatting outside and inside Cuban immigrants are trying to settle in.

But what you don’t see is the emotional weight many of the immigrants are carrying.

“It’s been a difficult journey for us Cubans” said Armando Rodriguez.

Rodriguez tells ABC-7 his trek to the United States took him three and-a-half months.

Rodriguez flew to Guyana. From there a man charged him $350 to cross him into Brazil, through the jungle to the next border.

“It was difficult. You’re in a jungle and you have no idea where you’re going,” said Rodriguez.

He was taken to the Venezuelan border and that’s where things took a turn for the worse. As Rodriguez got on a bus for the next leg of his journey, “while everyone was asleep they held up the bus,” said Rodriguez, “They fired two shots up in the air and shot out the windshield, made the bus driver pull over at gunpoint and robbed everyone, even a pregnant women,” he added.

But it got worse.

Rodriguez says Colombia was the hardest part of his trip. On a bus again, he tells ABC-7 he and other immigrants would get shaken down.

“We were made to take off all of our clothes to make sure we weren’t hiding money, women included,” said Rodriguez.

Rodriguez tells ABC-7 they were terrified adding –in Cuba there might be despair but there isn’t violence like that.

At one point Rodriguez says with all the pressure, one woman who was with her husband and child died on the bus.

“They had to bury her in the jungle off the side of the road,” Rodriguez tells ABC-7.

From Panama to Mexico and El Paso Rodriguez says the trek was much easier. He was welcomed into the United States with guidance and although he says he’s relieved, he says the pain of missing his family is unbearable.

Rodriguez tells ABC-7 he left behind three boys and four grandchildren that are his life.

Immigrants ABC-7 spoke with say they are migrating because they say making $10 to $20 dollars a month isn’t a life.

Friday Rodriguez is leaving for Amarillo where he has a job waiting for him.