MIAMI -- Angelo Gomez walked across seven countries and a gang-infested jungle. He caught a ride through Mexico atop the train known as La Bestia, carrying a bucket of rocks for protection. Then he turned himself over to Border Patrol agents in Texas earlier this month, telling them he feared returning to Venezuela.
Gomez, 30, was the last holdout among his family, having stayed behind to guard their home from squatters in the capital, Caracas, after his parents fled to Peru and his sister journeyed to the U.S. nine months earlier. He had been a street vendor selling anything he could think of — doughnuts, flip-flops, tostones.
But when making enough money to eat became a daily gamble he, too, decided it was time to go.
