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Immigrant workers
tragic 9/11 casualties



It took five long years. But finally someone in government realized that thousands of people who developed debilitating and even fatal illnesses working at Ground Zero must be helped.
The three bills that Gov. Pataki signed on Monday begin to do just that. They benefit many of the workers, policemen, firefighters and volunteers who became sick working at Ground Zero, and the families of those who died.

But hundreds of immigrant workers and volunteers whose health was permanently affected are in danger of being left unprotected again.

"These laws directly affect Latinos and other immigrants who worked cleaning the disaster area," said Oscar Paredes, executive director of the Latin American Workers Project in Brooklyn. "They need to prove that they worked there. But many were hired as day workers, and have no way of proving it."

Most were hired to clean contaminated buildings for a measly $7.50 an hour. Worse, like everybody else, they were not told by the private contractors - or by the city - of the dangers involved, and were never given any health protection.

"Even to this day, we are taking care of Latinos who were affected when they worked at the World Trade Center or its surroundings," said Joel Magallán, the executive director of Asociación Tepeyac in Manhattan.

In fact, more than 600 people - most of them undocumented Latino immigrants in desperate need of work - were hired in those days from streetcorners to scrub dust from buildings around the World Trade Center ruins.

That dust, as we all know now, was highly toxic. It contained high levels of asbestos, silica, lead, mercury and other toxins. Only a miracle could have saved the workers from falling ill.

The number of people affected is tremendous. Paredes said that since Sept. 11, 2001, 2,600 people have sought help at the office of the Latin American Workers Project.

One of those is an Ecuadoran legal immigrant named Stalin Barcco, now 43, who for almost two months worked at Ground Zero cleaning asbestos and debris.

In October 2003, Barcco, an Astoria resident, began to experience serious difficulty breathing. The reason, doctors said, was prolonged contact with contaminated particles.

Barcco has a 21-year-old son who is in Japan with the U.S. Navy, and a 19-year-old daughter who is in college.

"I haven't been able to do anything for them in many months because I cannot work," said the former asbestos worker who used to make more than $30,000 a year. "I am always tired. Doctors say that my lungs are like a 70-year-old man's."

Also suffering from diabetes, Barcco applied for workers' compensation, but the two-year deadline had passed. Encouraged by the bills Pataki just signed, he is planning to reapply, although years of rejection and frustration have made him suspicious.

"I hope this time it is for real," he said bitterly. "For all I know, it could be just political posturing."

But at least Barcco can prove he worked at Ground Zero. The undocumented who also developed grave health problems while cleaning the disaster area have no way of proving it.

Pataki has said that there will be help for immigrants - documented or not - and their families, but "they need to talk to their employers to prove they worked in Ground Zero."

Employers, though, are not in the least forthcoming. They are aware that they broke the law by hiring the workers and placing them in dangerous working conditions, and thus are reluctant to help their former employees.

"We have called many employers asking them for letters for the workers," Paredes said. "Not one has agreed to write it."

Originally published on August 17, 2006