Immigrants were on the job when Baltimore's Key Bridge collapsed

The bodies of two missing construction workers, victims in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, were recovered from the Patapsco River on Wednesday. Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, was from Guatemala. Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, 35, was from Mexico.

Another victim, one of four still missing on Friday and presumed dead, was also from Mexico, as was a rescued worker who survived the collapse, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said.

A missing worker identified as Miguel Luna was from El Salvador. Another missing man, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was from Honduras. Another whose identity has not been made public was from Guatemala.

These workers — all immigrants — gave their lives as they worked to maintain the bridge for millions who use it. Sure, they got a paycheck and a chance at a better life, which is why most immigrants come to the U.S. They also were doing a job that Americans by and large no longer want to do.

Construction is a dangerous business. Accidents are bound to happen. It is all the more precarious when you work in the middle of the night, the shift the Baltimore bridge workers had.

This helps to explain why fewer Americans want such jobs. It's true for all types of construction: road work, home building, roofing and carpentry.

For many years, too, American high schools got away from promoting the trades as they pushed students to pursue college degrees. That resulted in far fewer American workers in trades, even though many such jobs pay well. Immigrants, along with women, have narrowed some of those employment gaps.

Worker shortages

“We’re seeing [job] growth with investment in infrastructure and the energy sector — in green energy and traditional energy,” Eric M. Dean, who grew up in Chicago and is now general president of the Iron Workers International Association and chair of the immigration committee for the AFL-CIO, told us. “Every skilled trade is looking for a resupply of workers.”

Dean pointed out that European immigrants formed his union in the late 19th century. “Immigrants brought skills across the pond,” he said. As a member of Local Union No. 63 in Chicago, he worked his way up alongside immigrants from Ireland, Poland, Germany, South America, Central America and Mexico.

“Sweat doesn’t get measured by where you were born,” Dean said. “It’s measured by how hard you are working.”

Those are words to live by — and for centuries immigrants have put sweat equity into tough physical jobs in the trades, health care, food service, hospitality, landscaping and agriculture. Many also have left their marks in career fields of medicine and technology. All those industries have something in common right now — a need for more workers, and immigrants — most documented, some not — willing to fill them.

Still, too often, immigrants have borne the blame for the ills of American society, whether it’s crime, economic problems or unemployment. None of that is rooted in reality.

Extensive research shows that immigrant men in America have had a lower incarceration rate than U.S.-born men for the last 150 years.

A budget and economic report published in February by the Congressional Budget Office detailed how immigrants are helping to bolster the U.S. economy. Immigration will be vital to sustaining the U.S. workforce and Social Security as birthrates decline in the U.S. and older folks age out of the workforce.

Such details are conveniently omitted from some conservatives’ ugly narratives about immigrants, including undocumented immigrants.

This is not to dismiss the chaos consuming America's southern border in the last decade, especially in the last few years. President Joe Biden and some members of Congress seemed on the verge of making a dent in that very tough problem, which could easily become a national security threat, with legislation that would toughen some aspects of our immigration policy and make more resources available.

But Republicans in the U.S. House —call them weak-willed, or worse, but clearly at the behest of former President Donald Trump — copped out of passing the legislation, despite it including provisions they had called for and that border states sorely need. Trump urged them to back away so he can campaign on border issues mixed with xenophobia.

The workers fixing potholes on that bridge in Baltimore are a reminder that America needs immigrants to keep moving forward, whether to pick peaches, slaughter cattle, build businesses, keep hospitals running or keep up bridges.

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