NEW YORK — Weary of Venezuela’s autocratic government and the pittance he earned in the military, Dario Maldonado deserted and fled with his family to neighboring Colombia.
But life remained hard - money was tight and expenses mounted. So he set off for the United States, an odyssey that required him to travel by foot through Central American jungle infested with venomous snakes and gun-toting bandits, sometimes sidestepping the corpses of people who died on the same journey.
Now Maldonado and thousands of other asylum seekers from across Latin America and the Caribbean are caught in the political battle over U.