Recovery efforts remain ongoing following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, which was struck by a container ship early Tuesday morning. Vehicles and several construction workers fell into the river below. There were two men saved from the water, while there are still six to go and presumed dead.
Little is known about why the ship hit the deck. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, is still evaluating relationships that the ship lost power before the collision. Numerous unlikely ones theories about the incident are now circulating to fill the knowledge gap, including one launched by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo.
“The White House released a statement on the matter saying that ‘there is no indication of nefarious intent in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.'” She said Bartiromo yesterday, preface to an interview with Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.). “Of course, you talked a lot about the potential for wrongdoing or the potential for foul play, given the wide-open border.”
Although Bartiromo suggests that the Key Bridge tragedy may be linked to border crossings, the details of Tuesday’s incident say much more about the contributions of immigrant workers than the dangers of an “open border.”
“Jesus Campos, an employee of contractor Brawner Builders, had been working the night shift on the bridge work before moving on to another,” reported The Baltimore banner. “He said the missing men are from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.” The New York Times confirmed that at least one of the missing men was from El Salvador and two from Guatemala.
In other words, based on what is currently known about the victims, the men working on the Key Bridge when it collapsed were immigrant workers seeking better economic opportunities and ended up Filling difficult jobs. “They are all humble, hard-working men,” Campos said, and they all came to the country to help their loved ones in their home countries, the Standard reported.
Immigrants have long held jobs that Americans don’t want, including dangerous and grueling ones. “Immigrants are indeed more likely to work in risky jobs than U.S.-born workers,” he wrote economists Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny in a 2009 article on Demography. Physically demanding jobs included construction and agricultural work – are disproportionately occupied by immigrants. About 2.2 million of the country’s construction workers, or a quarter of the total construction workforce, were foreign-born in 2015, according to the Urban Institute reported.
“This catastrophe has already disproportionately impacted our city’s immigrant community, who often toil in demanding and dangerous jobs that benefit all who call Baltimore home,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refuge, a Baltimore-based nonprofit immigration services organization, in a statement yesterday.
The workers who fell into the Patapsco River Tuesday were doing what many other immigrants here do. They were doing backbreaking and dangerous work, work that benefits their American neighbors, to earn a living and support their loved ones. Rather than offering clear evidence of the consequences of a “wide open border,” the Key Bridge collapse highlighted the contributions of hard-working immigrants, many of whom take predictable and, in this case, unpredictable risks.