Posted on 09/10/2004 11:16:31 AM PDT by Sweet_Sunflower29
paycheck stub, a phone record, a money transfer receipt - all they needed was some piece of paper to prove their loved one existed.
Yet for families of Mexican migrants killed in the Sept. 11 attacks and seeking compensation or just a death certificate, even those small requirements have been impossible to meet, especially if the victims were in the United States illegally.
Without Social Security numbers, tax records - and in some cases not even a birth certificate - grieving family members have been unable to confirm their relatives were at the scene of the 2001 terror attacks, or provide documents necessary to receive a share of a fund that has awarded an average of a little more than $2 million per victim.
"When you're undocumented in any country, it's like you're in a shadow," said Norberto Terrazas, counsel for Mexican citizens' legal protection at the Mexican consulate in New York. "No one sees you. No one notices. They can see your work, that you're contributing to the economy and consuming goods, but you really don't exist."
Of 16 presumed Mexican victims - all undocumented migrants - only five of their families were able to prove their deaths in the attacks, and to qualify for compensation. Eleven others couldn't - or didn't even try to - produce the necessary information to receive a death certificate.
In a spirit of compassion, U.S. authorities required little more than a picture of a victim in their former New York workplace to issue a death certificate for missing migrants.
But for at least five Mexican families, even that was too daunting a request.
"Much of the evidence I don't think is that difficult to get," Terrazas told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "But in these cases, it's just that the families did not have anything whatsoever: a receipt that a Mexican national was wiring them money, maybe a telephone number of friends - or any kind of testimony that could help us establish whether the person was there."
Families of a dozen migrants from several Latin American countries including Colombia, Peru, Honduras and Bolivia, faced similar problems, said Teresa Garcia, development director for the Tepeyac Association, a nonprofit network of community organizations helping undocumented Latin American migrants in New York City.
"They say, 'Bring your DNA sample.' But these people don't have that," Garcia said. "Or even dentist records. For people who live within the system, this is all common sense. But for those who don't it is very difficult to find the documents. Many of these people were born marginalized," and some never obtained even so much as a birth certificate.
Still, most of those 12 families were able to confirm the deaths of their relatives.
For the Mexican victims, the problem stems partly from their illegal status: Living on the fringes of U.S. society, undocumented migrants have no Social Security numbers, and often use fake names. Even legal migrants run into problems because many share housing with others to save money and so have no utility bills in their own name, Garcia noted.
Others simply disappear, even from their family, giving few details about their whereabouts.
All Felix Martinez of Mexico's central Puebla state knew is that her husband, Jose Morales, worked in or near the World Trade Center. He never told her exactly what he did, making it impossible for her to pursue a claim, Garcia said.
In contrast, Leobardo Lopez, a cook at the Windows on the World restaurant, always stayed in touch in the seven years he worked in Los Angeles and New York. He sent money regularly and visited for months at a time before sneaking back illegally over the U.S. border.
Lopez's relatives were relieved when investigators recovered partial remains and sent them home in June for burial. He is the only Mexican victim whose remains have been handed over to the family.
"We feel a little more at ease now," Lopez's sister Manuela Lopez Pascual de Mejia, said during an interview in San Pablo Anicano, a small, quiet village of 1,000 people in the sun-bitten Sierra Mixteca. "Now we have someplace to place a flower or a candle."
An estimated 500 people from 91 foreign countries were among the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. About 250 foreigners - or half - qualified for compensation from the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund created by Congress.
Fund administrators didn't release a breakdown of countries or regions for the 250 non-Americans who qualified for payments, nor did they release an average payout figure for them. The average award for all victims' families has been a little more than $2 million.
Each of the five Mexican families qualifying for compensation asked that the amounts they received not be made public, Terrazas said.
Administrators estimate that roughly 50 of the 250 foreign citizens who were compensated were undocumented. The exact number of illegal migrants is unknown, however, because fund administrators didn't ask for that information. In fact, they stressed that undocumented aliens who came forward would not be reported to immigration authorities.
"We took great pains, working closely with the undocumented worker families," said Kenneth Feinberg, the Washington lawyer who ran the fund. "The people of the United States bent over backward to assist these families."
Despite assurances, some families of illegal migrants decided it wasn't worth the risk.
"A lot of them feared coming forward," Terrazas said. "They don't trust the authorities."
Five Mexican families who initially contacted the Mexican consulate to report missing relatives never followed up with claims. When consulate personnel tried to contact them they either reached a wrong number or a cell phone that had been canceled or disconnected.
There are some success stories.
Ecuadorean families who formed an association and hired lawyers to help them confirmed the deaths of 15 Ecuadoreans, 80 percent of whom were undocumented, said the Ecuadorean vice consul in New York, Carol Hare. She couldn't say whether all the families got compensation.
With terrorism a continuing threat in the United States, Manuela Lopez is worried more illegal migrants will be killed - and forgotten forever.
She has four siblings and a son working in Los Angeles illegally, and another son near Baltimore.
"I tell my sons to come home because I hear all the time on the news that terrorism is going to continue to strike there," she said. "They tell me, 'We all have to die,' but I say, 'Not this way.'"
Wow - 2 million dollars for a picture? How do we even know they didn't move back to Mexico and were not even in NYC on the time of the attack?
File this with all the rest of the 'poor undocumented immigrant' articles.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........maybe they could try entering the country legally?
BINGO!
We HAVE a winner!
Oh give me a break! Even dogs have DNA.
Administrators estimate that roughly 50 of the 250 foreign citizens who were compensated were undocumented. The exact number of illegal migrants is unknown, however, because fund administrators didn't ask for that information. In fact, they stressed that undocumented aliens who came forward would not be reported to immigration authorities.
I can only scratch my head on that one.
Why are we compensating anyone, especially illegal aliens? Why do I have to give money to compensate people for an event that I had absolutely nothing to do with?
Sorry, I'm a cold hearted bastard with no sympanthy or compassion for these illegals.
Every one of them had to supply a social security number to work, including the cook who worked at Windows of the World. Those socials were stolen from someone, and the people who have their numbers stolen have a major hassel trying to clear up with the Feds when and where they actually did collect wages.
If you don't want to be a "marginalized" "shadow" "living on the fringes of society", trying joining in and getting the same taxpayer id number the rest of us have.
That is correct. An illegal by the name of D. Ramos stole my ss# then financed a car which was repo'd later (naturally). It cost me big $$ and years to restore my credit to A1.
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