Thread: Illegal immigrant falls on hard times in Fayette County

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Illegal immigrant falls on hard times in Fayette County
By Jennifer Harr, Herald-Standard
07/10/2005
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Daniel Granados, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, came to the United States hoping to find work, nearly died and was tossed into the street by a boss who hired the illegal immigrant. (Dave Rafferty/Herald-Standard)
He's of average height, thinly built, and his dark brown eyes are reluctant to make contact.

Daniel Moreno Granados looks up when he hears a question posed to him in English.

"What did she say?" he quietly asks translator Olga Rivera.

In rapidly spoken Spanish, he hears the question, a slight smile crossing his face as he realizes he understood what was asked.

Granados understands some English, but is reluctant to respond in English for fear he might make a mistake.

He fiddles constantly with a pen, rolling it back and forth in his hands, and leafs through a newspaper circular. His answers are always quiet, accompanied by the occasional wave of his hands that tries to break the language barrier. The few smiles Granados musters as he talks about the last year are steeped in sadness.

At 20, Granados has been through more in the past year than many people three times his age. He came to the United States hoping to find work, nearly died and was tossed out onto the street by a boss who hired the illegal immigrant.


Now he sits at the City Mission men's shelter in Uniontown, where he's been since February, hoping that he might one day be healthy enough to work again. To do that, he needs medicine and therapy he cannot afford because of his illegal status.

The way to Fayette County

In the summer of 2004, Granados said, he sneaked into the United States through Texas, leaving behind his parents and siblings and hoping for a better life. In Texas, he found work as a painter, but as the work started slowing down, he gave some thought to a business card handed to him by a man in Texas.

The card offered employment opportunities, so he called the number on the card and went to see the man. That call set off a chain of events that Granados said led him straight to Fayette County.

The man made a phone call, Granados said, and then offered to send him to Pennsylvania, but told the then 19-year-old he would have to take him across country immediately.

Granados had only the clothes on his back, and he left all of his belongings, including a bicycle, his only means of transportation.

"What about my clothes, my things?" he said he asked.

He said the man assured him he would send the items along once Granados got to his new home.

It has been months, maybe even a year since he came to Uniontown, but he has never received them.

A driver brought him to Fayette County, and then, he said, collected $700 from the owner of a Uniontown-area restaurant who basically bought his services until that debt was paid off. Tired from the trip, Granados said he hoped to rest.

Instead, "They put me to work right then and there," he said.

He had no restaurant experience, so his employers put him to work washing dishes. He said they told him that they would train him on other aspects of the business as time went on.

But the next day, Granados said, his employers had him doing food preparation and washing dishes. He did not complain, but could not keep up with what needed to be done.

An employee kicked him, Granados alleged, and then three others beat him because he could not keep pace.

During the five days he spent at the Uniontown restaurant, he said, he told his boss repeatedly that he wanted to leave. His boss told him he would call the police, Granados said.

The boss eventually called the men from Texas who brought him, Granados said, and he asked the men to come and get him - a promise he said they made if things didn't work out.

The Texan refused, so Granados left and started walking.

He ended up downtown on Main Street, near the Fayette County Courthouse. He saw the renovation work as part of the downtown revitalization going on, and, feeling at home with the line of work, he approached one of the men.

New work, illness

After speaking with a supervisor there, Granados said, he was hired to do painting and power washing to the buildings, and he stayed on until September as downtown Uniontown got its gradual facelift. Granados, with pride evident on his face, said his boss told him he worked the best, so he kept him on longer hours than the other workers.

Granados said he wasn't given any sort of protective gear, and he is still unsure if chemical exposure of some kind is what left him gravely ill last September.

Living with his boss on the renovation project, Granados felt sick one day. It started with a sore throat, he said, and then turned into pain that overtook his whole body. He took a hot bath, hoping that doing so would ease the stiffness.

"I could barely put my clothes back on," he said.

The next morning, he was taken to Uniontown Hospital, and then transferred to Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown, W.Va.

"Then I didn't wake up for a month," he said.

Granados was admitted under the name Daniel Brown, according to medical records obtained by the shelter he now calls home. To this day, he is unsure exactly what was wrong with him. The records indicate he was in a coma for about a month, and was eventually released from the hospital in December, three months after he was admitted.

He got pneumonia, and at one point, doctors used a defibrillator to bring him back when his heart stopped beating, medical records indicate. He was released from the hospital with a wheelchair and a walker, and was told to get physical therapy, according to medical records.

He left in a wheelchair, which he used to get around for several months.

"I'd say it's a miracle that he made it," said Rivera, who has become Granados' friend.

Granados has no insurance and has more than $250,000 in outstanding medical bills, according to hospital documentation.

As Granados recovered in the hospital, he told his boss, whom he has repeatedly declined to name, that he was going to stay in the hospital. He figured the hospital wouldn't just kick him out. It was his boss's wife who insisted he come and stay with them again, he said.

At his boss's home, they bought him clothes, and let him call his family in Mexico three times a week.

And there he stayed for several weeks.

Time to go

What exactly precipitated his being asked to leave, Granados is unsure.

Perhaps, he suggested, after two months of living with them, he was a strain on his boss's family. He wasn't contributing to the household, and he was "in the way," he said.

"That's how the problem starts, and I didn't want to create that burden," he said.

So when they told him he had to leave, he did.

On Feb. 13, state police responded to the Sweet Peas gas station in Fairchance on a report that a man in a wheelchair was dropped off there. Granados had some clothes in a shopping bag but no coat on the blustery day, he said.

Holding his clothes and trying to manage a walker, Granados was trying to wheel himself down a hill near the gas station when neighbors saw him and intervened.

They took him in, and when they realized he spoke little English, called Rivera.

Since she is bilingual, she was able to converse with Granados over the phone and discern that he needed a place to stay and get back on his feet.

She came to see him a short time later.

"I was shocked because he looked so young," she said, shaking her head.

When state police trooper Juan Curry arrived at the house, Rivera said, she worked as an interpreter to facilitate the conversation.

Curry said he checked with an immigration agent, who said that without warrants for or pending criminal charges against Granados, he could be released.

So Curry took him to the men's shelter in early February.

Today

He's mingled with the men there, and shelter caseworker Diana Hoffer said the men look out for Granados.

The City Mission has made exceptions to help Granados. While most people are not permitted to stay longer than 60 days, Hoffer said the mission has taken into consideration the circumstances of his case and are working to help him.

"We're not going to put him out on the street," she said.

Granados started walking again in late February, but still struggles with uneven footing. Hoffer stressed the need for physical therapy, but said that the money to help him just isn't there.

Because he is an illegal immigrant, Granados is not eligible for any state or federally funded assistance programs, Hoffer said.

She has made calls to various agencies, including the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"They basically told me there's nothing they can do but take him back to Mexico," Hoffer said.

Toward the end of April, Hoffer said, she was able to make contact with the owner of Redstone Rehabilitation Services. The business agreed to donate both physical and occupational therapy services for Granados.

"They've been working with him very well," Hoffer said. "It's been a blessing that they were able to donate their services."

Granados maintains that he wants to stay in the United States. He is even hopeful that the boss who kicked him out on the streets in winter will take him back as an employee if he gets well again.

Doing that is easier than starting from scratch with another employer, he said.


©The Herald Standard 2005

Because he is an illegal immigrant, Granados is not eligible for any state or federally funded assistance programs, Hoffer said.

Excuse me--this guy has rung up over $250,000 bills he'll never pay, has stayed in how many tax-payer funded "shelters" and God only knows what else, and he "isn't entitled to federally funded assistance?"

Un farkin believable. oh and I love where this guys says he didn't "cause this burden."

Oh yes you did. By crossing our border.

This is absolute insanity.

This is a sad story. I feel sympathy for the illegal. I feel nothing but .. well, uh .. better not say - for the crumbs that took advantage of him.

However, if the illegal had OBEYED the law and not come here illegally he wouldn't be in this mess.

How many more of these sob stories is the OBL going to push?

They aren't changing my mind.

It's rather like that age-old wisdom of "sowing what you reap."

If you choose to act illegally, then don't go whining when you're met with difficulties!

They are pushing sob stories so they can push their pro-illegal immigration agenda in the house and senate.

yeah Mop--I should point out that I'm sorry this guy is in such rough shape. I would wish this on anybody. I'm just angry at the dishonesty in this article. All emotion, no honesty.

They have his picture splashed all over the newspaper and 'tell' us that he is illegal. Then a state trooper, Juan Curry, comes to the house and contacts immigration officials, who say there is nothing to do but let him go.
HOW CAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! THEY MAKE THE LAW LOOK LIKE ITS WRITTEN FROM THE FUNNY PAPERS.

HOW CAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY! THEY MAKE THE LAW LOOK LIKE ITS WRITTEN FROM THE FUNNY PAPERS.

So true Butterbean!