Battered by Charley, Migrant
Workers Fear Seeking Aid

By EVAN PEREZ
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
August 18, 2004; Page B1

ARCADIA, Fla. -- A massive relief operation is rolling into the hurricane-ravaged cattle

and citrus towns of southwestern Florida, but thousands of illegal immigrant laborers risk

falling through the cracks of disaster recovery.

Government and volunteer aid workers have rushed into town centers with water, free

meals, diapers, and promises of help for residents to restart their lives. But many immigrant

workers -- the often invisible cogs of the local economy -- aren't showing up. Some fear that

they may be turned in to authorities for not having legal immigration documents; others are

unaware that they might qualify for some forms of aid.

What's more, officials say that under state and federal guidelines, illegal workers aren't

eligible for most of the government aid made available to other victims of the disaster,

such as loans and cash grants for emergency expenses and repairs to homes or trailers.

In any case, most undocumented workers appear to be staying far from the centralized relief

stations now being set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state and

private aid agencies.

"Because the farm workers are so fearful, they will not go to where the Army or the government

has set up feeding stations or tent workers or shelters, because they are just conditioned to fear

authorities and deportation," says Christine Talcott-Roberts, a migrant farm-worker specialist

for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Miami.

FEMA officials have tried to reassure migrant workers that they are welcome at emergency

shelters and health-care stations, and that government workers won't report them to the Immigrant

and Naturalization Service.

"There is no collection of an immigrant's status," says FEMA spokeswoman Cindy Taylor. "People

don't need to worry about that becoming an issue."

However, the agency does say that unless at least one member of a family can certify that he or

she is legally in the U.S., the family won't be eligible for temporary housing assistance, disaster

loans or emergency assistance grants.

Nor can migrant workers who aren't coming forward count on recovery efforts reaching them. "We

haven't seen any of the help in this part of town," says Andres Hernandez Galindo, a 43-year-old

native of the tiny town of Calcahualco, in Mexico's Vera Cruz state.

With the sound of a convoy of aid trucks rumbling in the background, he stands among mangled

sheet metal, a soggy couch and toppled Australian pines, surveying the obliterated scene in his

neighborhood, called Pine Level. He and a friend, Angel Garcia, both undocumented immigrants,

survived as Hurricane Charley dismantled the rented trailer home they share during a harrowing

two-hour assault of rain and 145-mile-an-hour winds four days ago. Mr. Hernandez salvaged only a

small bag with three pairs of work pants.

A manual laborer who, like most of the other residents of his decrepit trailer-home community,

speaks only Spanish, Mr. Hernandez spent the first days after the storm tooling around Arcadia

on an old bicycle with speckled yellow paint and bald tires looking for friends he hadn't seen since

the hurricane hit.

Migrant farm workers like Mr. Hernandez pose a particularly thorny challenge for authorities in the

aftermath of the hurricane. The storm raked through the heart of Florida's most dense concentration

of migrant workers, mostly illegal immigrants living in farm camps or run-down trailer-home

neighborhoods on the outskirts of isolated towns.

A 2000 study for the federal government estimated that there were more than 111,000 such workers

in the 25 counties now designated federal disaster areas. The Hispanic population in areas

devastated by Hurricane Charley and Tropical Storm Bonnie has grown recently at one of the

fastest rates in the country. More than 630,000 Hispanics lived in the 25 hardest-hit Florida

counties in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, up 143% since 1990.

But no one really knows how many among the elusive population of migrants and undocumented

workers were in the area when the hurricane hit. Relatively few own their own homes, with thousands

of workers living in migrant camps owned by the farmers.

The citrus-picking season, which provides work for thousands of laborers through the winter, wasn't

yet under way when Charley blew in. But truck farms that grow vegetables such as strawberries and

cucumbers were in full harvest. Many migrant-worker families split up at this time of year, with men

traveling north to Michigan and the Carolinas for harvesting season, leaving their families in this

rural Florida region. Florida is the second-biggest producer of fresh vegetables in the U.S., and

some crops require heavy labor by hand, including strawberries and tomatoes.

Warren May, a spokesman for Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation, says his office is attempting

to organize delivery of aid directly to immigrant communities. The agency has dispatched a team of

field agents to canvass areas with heavy concentrations of immigrant laborers this week to help

target aid. Mr. May says the state will attempt to help illegal workers by hiring as many as possible

for federally funded debris removal work. "Our concerns for their basic safety and food and shelter

are no different than they are for any citizen affected," Mr. May says.

Peter Routsis-Arroyo, president of Catholic Charities, of the Diocese of Venice, says his organization

has begun offering help at an Arcadia Roman Catholic Church and is trying to reach the immigrant

workers of the area. "They're in desperate need, in terms of even something to eat," he says.

Near downtown Arcadia, beside the now-destroyed rodeo, another immigrant neighborhood is nearly

impassable due to fallen trees and pieces of trailers. Daniel Arcos, 28, of Altotonga, Vera Cruz,

Mexico, and his five friends who share a four-bedroom house didn't know about shelters available

in town and spent the storm running from room to room as Charley methodically ripped off the roof

of the small red brick house.

With the citrus crop gone, Mr. Arcos says his seasonal harvesting job won't materialize this year

and he may not be able to send money to his wife, parents and three boys, who live off the

remittances.

But he has more immediate concerns. Six men are living in one small room, which has partial

cover from the elements, the stench from soggy carpeting and personal effects overwhelming

them. All his clothes and belongings, including a television and boom box were destroyed.

"What do we do?" he asks. "We really thought we were going to die in the storm. But we

weren't prepared for this."

The problems reaching immigrant pockets in this region were widespread. Mexican consulate

officials from Miami and members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm-worker

advocacy group in southwestern Florida, visited a largely Mexican community in Bokelia,

a small town near Fort Myers, where some 500 residents work in nearby plant nurseries.

Lucas Benitez, a leader of the group, says the community is largely made up of mobile homes

in terrible shape before the storm and now destroyed. Some residents say they had called

FEMA to ask for help, but were told they had to have a Social Security number, which residents

without legal immigration status don't have.

Jorge Lomonaco, Mexico's consul general in Miami, says he traveled to the area and hopes

to meet with FEMA officials to see whether the agency can offer residents more help.

"There's no reason why these people should be at the end of the line," he says.