LOS ANGELES: The loss of life of six Latino employees who have been fixing potholes when a Baltimore bridge collapsed highlights the essential function immigrants play in conserving America working, say advocates.And it stands in stark distinction to the rhetoric of populists like Donald Trump, who solid them as prison invaders ruining the nation.”Migrants come and do the roles that Individuals do not need to do,” mentioned Luis Vega, an activist and former building employee. The work is simply too exhausting, the hours are too lengthy, or the circumstances too tough.”Who right here needs to wash resort rooms? Who needs to work underneath the recent solar? Who needs to be within the fields?” mentioned Vega.A staff of eight males have been doing highway upkeep in a single day Monday into Tuesday on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when an enormous container ship smashed right into a assist pillar, sending nearly your entire span crashing into the Patapsco River.Two have been pulled alive from the water, however six died; brothers, husbands and fathers from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.”Immigrants — we get the job performed,” mentioned senior White Home adviser Tom Perez, himself a Latino.”The six individuals who perished, the 2 others who survived… that is America, the immigrants (have been) repairing potholes.”The tragedy comes at a time many Latinos really feel they’re underneath assault from sections of the political class, as america ramps up for a bitter presidential election in November between Trump and incumbent Joe Biden.Trump’s stridently anti-immigrant marketing campaign consists of solutions that, if elected, he’ll embark on a mass expulsion of individuals he blames for crime and drug dependancy he says are wracking America.”The previous president would not see how a lot injury he does together with his poison,” mentioned Vega.”Terrorists do not sneak over the US-Mexico border; they fly in on a visa.”The individuals who pay traffickers to smuggle them throughout the hostile deserts of the US southwest are the individuals who find yourself doing the soiled and tough jobs that Individuals depend upon.”In 2020, after we had the Covid pandemic… nobody wished to work intently with one other individual,” mentioned Vega.”So who did the work? The cleansing within the hospitals? Harvesting the meals? It was the immigrants who risked their lives.”- Excessive danger – These dangers, even when they aren’t all the time deadly, as they have been for the Baltimore bridge employees, are all too actual.In Arizona the authorized minimal wage is $14.35 an hour, however, says Javier Galindo, a contractor in Tucson, immigrant employees will earn solely $80 to $100 per day, typically for 10 or 12 hours work.”You recognize what time you are available in, however not what time you’ll go away,” he says.Poverty and desperation drive migrants to just accept these wages, and to work in circumstances that may be deadly, equivalent to excessive temperatures.In accordance with official numbers, Latino immigrants comprised 8.2 p.c of america workforce in 2020-2021 however accounted for 14 p.c of office deaths. The overall variety of deaths has additionally risen, up 42 p.c over the last decade to 2021, with 727 Latinos dying on the job that 12 months.Root-and-branch reform of migration into america, together with regularizing pathways to work, would assist to scale back this toll, say activists.However it could additionally alleviate what many say is a determined scarcity of labor.”There’s a lack of manpower,” says Galindo, whose enterprise was badly hit by border closures through the Covid pandemic.The 48-year-old started his working life at simply 14 years previous, clambering over rooftops.”You may by no means see a white individual doing that job,” he mentioned.Within the 20 years since he began his firm, just one white American ever knocked on his door asking for a job as a driver.”He did not final lengthy,” laughs Galindo. “He walked off the job.”In his area, he says, the development sector relies upon nearly solely on immigrants, with the undocumented enjoying a key function. It’s a feeling shared extensively.”If we solely employed folks with the correct papers, issues would go very badly for us,” one Arizona contractor advised AFP.”We would not be capable of construct what’s being constructed on this metropolis if it weren’t for undocumented employees.”