Twenty-five years after September 11th, some elderly immigrants who helped clear debris at Ground Zero now face another fear: detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). An estimated 2,000 to 6,000 undocumented immigrants helped with the cleanup and rescue operations in Lower Manhattan after 9/11. Many of these individuals didn’t have protective gear; they only had paper face masks and rubber gloves, the kind you’d use to clean a house. They didn’t protect workers from all the toxic elements in the air.
A New Fear: Immigration Enforcement
Lucelly, a Colombian immigrant who told NPR that she didn’t want to give her last name, said she was on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens the day after the towers fell. Someone pulled up in a van and offered to pay people $8.50 an hour to help clean. She took the job. These workers are now suffering not only from the physical effects of their exposure but also from a new kind of anxiety, that the country they helped to rebuild might deport them. Since immigration enforcement has become more intense across the nation, various members of a long-established Queens group which supports 9/11 cleanup workers have told NPR that they have become afraid to leave their neighborhoods, to visit family who live in other states, or even to ask for the medical care and compensation to which they are legally entitled.
Impact & What’s Being Done
They deserve medical treatment, and that’s the important part. There are still benefits that undocumented workers can apply for if they got sick from working at ground zero. Many have done so, but according to Rosa Bramble Caballero, who runs the group in Queens, many won’t apply because they don’t want to put themselves out there. Legislation hasn’t done much to help ease these individuals’ fear. The 9/11 Immigrant Worker Freedom Act would allow these workers to gain legal status. The House Judiciary Committee held the bill in committee since lawmakers proposed it in 2017. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reintroduced the bill in 2025 and told NPR she feels Congress should easily come together on it before this year’s 9/11. No Republicans have cosponsored it yet.
Lucelly must decide whether to stay in the United States and risk detention or return to her home country, where she may not receive the medical treatment she needs as a result of her work at Ground Zero.
As always, ILBSG actively monitors ongoing U.S. immigration news. If you have questions about any U.S. immigration related issue, contact us. Working with an experienced attorney ensures you get the right advice based on the most recent laws. In an ever-evolving immigration policy landscape, it’s particularly critical you get the right advice.