Shortly before the attack of September 11, 2001, Álex Sánchez was walking next to his friend on his way to a court in Lower Manhattan, where he would be his translator. He remembers feeling a powerful vibration in the floor when the first tower collapsed. That fateful day continues to wreak havoc on his health two decades after one of the greatest tragedies in the United States.
The activist, born in New York to Dominican parents, was then working for ABM, a building cleaning and maintenance company that sent a brigade of workers to collaborate with the cleanup efforts at ground zero. It was there where Álex met hundreds of undocumented immigrants who, with him, worked more than 12 hours a day.
Sánchez recalls that within days of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center, word spread in New York City’s immigrant neighborhoods that workers were urgently needed to help with cleanup efforts. The job would pay cash, about $10 an hour, with no questions about society security cards or immigration status. Some were paid $60 a day.
Among those undocumented workers who came encouraged by the pay was José Negrón, who emigrated from Ecuador in 1999.
“I remember that at the beginning those in the government said that there was no risk, that we were going to clean up, that the country needed us united. But after the asbestos thing became known, many began to develop throat cancer and other diseases. Without knowing, we left our lives there,” said Negron during a telephone interview.
Christine Todd Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under George W. Bush at the time of the 9/11 attacks, told the public that the air around ground zero in New York was safe for breathe, but She admitted for the first time in 2016 that she was wrong.
Whitman, who was previously the former Republican governor of New Jersey, apologized to those affected but denied that she had ever lied about the air quality or that she knew at the time how dangerous it was.
The former official has maintained that, as head of the EPA, she was simply relaying what government scientists told her. She at the time warned those working at ground zero to wear respirators, but she dismissed concerns about the surrounding area, which was engulfed in dust and ash.
Negrón remembers that the government’s initial statements about the air quality in the area of the devastation ultimately convinced him that it was safe to participate in the cleanup efforts.
“We have not lived these twenty years, rather we have survived. We had to fight a lot for the little they gave us. Our biggest fear was deportation when Trump became president, so no, They have never treated us like heroes of September 11,” he responded when asked if he considered that undocumented workers have received recognition for their work.
Pressure was intense from the White House to New York City Hall to clean up what remained of the World Trade Center as quickly as possible and return vital nearby buildings, such as the New York Stock Exchange, to normal.
While police and firefighters and union workers wore protective equipment, undocumented workers had been hired by small, non-union contractors and were only provided with paper masks.
Sánchez, founder of United We Stand, an organization that since 2013 has focused on representing the Hispanic and undocumented community before legislators and guaranteeing their access to the social services available to those affected by the tragedy, remembers that he made money, but the cost What he would pay would be his health.
During a telephone interview, Álex told TELEMUNDO 47 that he has developed severe chronic pulmonary complications, such as asthma and nodules in the lungs. He has seen his colleagues die in the last twenty years, most of them undocumented who did not receive the recognition of heroes of September 11 or the immigration status that would allow them access to better health services and quality of life.
“This twentieth anniversary after the withdrawal of US troops in Afghanistan is very symbolic. “It is very emotional,” said Álex with a mixture of nostalgia and pain. “But I also think that there have been twenty years of forgetting the two thousand undocumented immigrants who worked removing the rubble from ground zero. “It has been twenty years in which their claim has been ignored.”
Sánchez expressed that, although undocumented workers have received some type of medical treatment and financial compensation, they still have not obtained the immigration status for which they have fought so hard.
UP TO TWO THOUSAND UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS ARE STILL WAITING FOR THE PATH TO LEGALIZATION
The 2,000 immigrants who helped clean up after September 11, 2001, face the same predicament: the threat of deportation, which became more acute during former President Trump’s administration, as Negron noted.
In July 2017, former Congressman Joseph Crowley, replaced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, announced a bill that would put 9/11 first responders and cleanup workers on a fast track to legalization. His office estimated then that the measure would protect between 1,000 and 2,000 immigrants, most with illnesses believed to be related to their work at ground zero.
But in the end the bill that would grant green cards to undocumented immigrants who served in the rescue, recovery and cleanup efforts after the terrorist attacks stalled.
Under the James Zadroga Act of 2010, which was reauthorized in 2015, compensation and health benefits were extended to victims of 9/11 and workers who responded to the attacks, including undocumented immigrants. Nearly 70 percent of the workers who helped with the cleanup showed respiratory symptoms, according to researchers at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
However, Sánchez and the hundreds of undocumented workers represented by his organization are hopeful that Hispanic lawmakers who once supported Crowley’s bill will revive the measure and reintroduce it to President Joe Biden’s administration.
Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez co-sponsored Crowley’s 9/11 Immigrant Workers Freedom Act in 2017, along with Representatives Adriano Espaillat and Jerrold Nadler, both of Manhattan.
“On this twentieth anniversary we want to call on Hispanic legislators to renew that effort and bring it back to light,” said Sánchez, who since 2005 has advocated for the Zadroga law and the need to grant its benefits to undocumented workers.
“It is time for the unsung heroes of 9/11 to be fully recognized,” he added.
2023-09-08 21:28:32
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