Immigrants have always done America’s hard work, and they still do. Here’s to them | Opinion

Two recent tragedies that killed construction workers remind us of who too often are the forgotten workers doing the heavy lifting for America. The recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was a disaster of major proportions, but it will be rebuilt, and the navigation channel will function once again for access to and from America’s largest port.

What cannot be rebuilt or returned to normal are the lives of the six men whose families and communities lost their loved ones in the dark waters of the Patapsco River. Working in the middle of the night on jobs few Americans would touch with a ten-foot pole, these men from Central America are reminders of who does the tough, physical work that builds and maintains America’s infrastructure.

Closer to home, we witnessed the collapse of a hangar under construction at the Boise airport that killed one of the owners of the building and workers who also migrated to America from Central America. It reminds me of the opening stanza of the country band Alabama’s hit song, “40 Hour Week (For a Livin’),” a song praising the workers of America.

“There are people in this country who work hard every day

“Not for fame or fortune do they strive

“But the fruits of their labor are worth more than their pay

“And it’s time a few of them were recognized”

The Alabama song continues naming specific jobs held by working men and women and which too often escape our attention or respect. Perhaps adding a line to Alabama’s song about workers risking their lives on America’s infrastructure would underscore the incredible loss visited on the families and communities left behind by the tragedies in Baltimore and Boise.

Who are these workers who take on such dangerous work? They are the men and women whom Donald Trump calls “animals,” telling his MAGA crowd he doesn’t know if you call them people. Taking it right out of Hitler’s playbook, he claims they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Instead, he wonders aloud why “nice countries like Denmark or Switzerland” don’t send us migrants. That’s code for Trump wishing there could be more migrants who are white, not black or brown.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized Trump for his insensitive and callous remarks, suggesting that “it didn’t bother Trump when he appointed Elaine Chao secretary of transportation.” Chao is McConnell’s wife, whose family emigrated from Taiwan. McConnell could also have mentioned Trump’s hypocrisy having married two women who were immigrants, one of whom the former First Lady, whose own arrival vis-a-vis immigration rules, left many unanswered questions.

These men and women who fill the toughest and most dangerous jobs in America work to punch their ticket of admission to America’s middle class, but Trump and his MAGA crowd deride them with their xenophobic and nativist thinking. They seem to have forgotten that many of them are the progeny of families from an earlier America who came to her shores with the same hopes and dreams as today’s migrants.

The six men who died when the bridge collapsed in Baltimore were working in the U.S. for years. One of those was Maynor Sandoval who was the archetypal migrant in many ways. He came to America from Azacualpa, Honduras and established his family in Baltimore, but never forgot his hometown. In an NPR interview, his brother told how Maynor built a hotel in Azacualpa and like many migrants, sent money south to those in need, even paying for people’s medicines and doctor’s visits. He also sponsored a youth soccer league.

Another worker who died on the bridge was Miguel Luna who was a husband, father of three and lived in Maryland for the past 19 years. He also operated a popular food truck in suburban Baltimore. Most of the victims left children and spouses behind, now without the means to support their families. It’s safe to say there’s no pension benefit, no 401K, no hefty savings accounts to help these families. That’s just the way it works for those who toil in the most menial and dangerous jobs.

An uncle of one of the workers killed in the Boise construction tragedy said that his nephew, Mario Sontay, was working so his family in Guatemala could have a car and a roof over their heads. Even before we get to the unforgiving nature of their deaths on the job and the loss their spouses and children must endure, these are workers many of whom spend months away from home sacrificing time with their families so they can send money to improve the lives of their loved ones.

As Trump’s MAGA allies threaten and demean migrants at our borders, there is irony in that many of them are coming from the Triangle countries of Honduras, San Salvador and Guatemala where American foreign policy over the years intervened to prop up dictators and autocrats only interested in feathering their own nests. Too often, the CIA inserted itself in local politics and supported whoever claimed to be the strongest anti-communist, usually strongmen who would suppress efforts to democratize their countries.

Efforts to address poverty and the calamitous effects of climate change were also ignored and the day finally arrived when the victims of depleted economies would march north to the country that contributed to their homeland’s undoing.

Trump does get one thing right. He tells his rallies that these migrants are “coming from countries that are a disaster,” as though that disqualifies them from entry into America. The clueless Trump misses the fact that disaster in the global south is precisely the reason migrants are fleeing, building an even stronger case for their perilous journeys to employment north of the border.

Try explaining any of this side of the migrant story to a MAGA crowd. You’re wasting your time. You have better odds buying one of those Powerball tickets.

There seems to be little room for empathy and compassion in Trump-think for those who arrive in America, left behind in Latin America by countries manipulated by a perverse American foreign policy subservient to dictatorships. It will take more than the 2024 general election to reverse the mean-spirited subculture concocted in Trump’s laboratories of narcissism and fueled by the haranguing of right-wing media, but Alabama had it right. Let’s honor those who toil “not for fame or fortune do they strive, but the fruits of their labor are worth more than their pay.”

These hard-working men who lost their lives at work in America are symbolic of tens of thousands of men and women who take the tough jobs across America — in its fields, in its motels, in its restaurants, anywhere there is menial work to be had.

It’s their stories that define an America whose Statue of Liberty proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It’s their stories that must override the hate-filled campaign against migrants by Donald Trump, the Republican Party and the likes of Fox News.

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.