People Who Helped After 9/11 Are Hiding From Trump’s ICE Raids
Donald Trump has put people who cleaned up Ground Zero at risk.
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, NPR spoke with a support group for undocumented workers who served on clean-up crews following the attacks—individuals who are now being tirelessly persecuted by the Trump administration.
Rosa Bramble Caballero, a social worker who runs the clean up crew support group, described how multiple contractors were paid millions of dollars to manage the clean-up response. Those companies hired subcontractors, and those companies in turn hired day laborers standing on street corners.
“Many women who did housekeeping were taken there. And then they got there and realized they were actually at ground zero, which, by the way, sometimes they were not told that that’s where they were going,” she said. It isn’t clear just how many undocumented workers were involved in these efforts, but estimates are between 2,000 and 6,000 people.
Undocumented workers are entitled to workers’ compensation, and individuals have received around $80,000 each for their work on 9/11 clean up crews in the past. But in light of the Trump admini...