By David Mora Vera
I interviewed him in a narrow office located in a narrow building close to Times Square in Manhattan. Unhurriedly, he listened to my questions, even though he had come almost half an hour late to our one-hour long meeting and even though someone else was waiting to see him after me. His silence at the beginning, followed by one-word answers, suggested that he had already heard all the stories there are to tell about the undocumented Mexicans who were killed in the World Trade Center.
His name is Joel Magallan. He came to New York from Mexico two decades ago as a Jesuit priest. He founded Asociación Tepeyac, an advocacy organization to promote recent immigrants’ integration into the larger Latino community through religious activities. But not long after, he left priesthood and, confronted with 9/11, adopted a more political stance, devoting his efforts to help immigrants affected by the tragedy.
David Mora: How did Tepeyac get involved with the undocumented migrants who died on 9/11 and their families?
Joel Magallan: Tepeyac not only provided help to those who died and to their families, but also to the people who had lost their jobs, around 900 people. So, it’s them, and the undocumented people who died… and also, the terminally ill patients.
DM: Do you remember how many families of undocumented migrants you helped?
JM: I don’t remember the number of families. Some of the people who died had a family here in the U.S. and another in their country, so it’s hard to know.
DM: OK, instead of families, do you remember how many Mexicans allegedly killed you helped? And of those, how many were recognized as victims by the government? Also, you said before “the terminally-ill.” To whom were you referring?
JM: We had 57 cases, and very few of them were recognized. Around seven or so, very few. Not everyone was Mexican. We also helped people from Colombia, Honduras, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republican. We also helped over 200 people who died in the aftermath, undocumented workers who were terminally ill. We worked with them until late 2006.
DM: You said 200… do you mean people who volunteered?
JM: We helped 200 people from Latin American countries. Not volunteers but rather undocumented workers who were hired off the books to clean up the Twin Towers area. Once police officers and firefighters who volunteered were taken out of the area, the city hired undocumented temporary workers through companies to keep removing the rubble. We followed up with them until 2006, when we ran out of funds to provide more help. Later one would hear through people we had in common about their deaths.
DM: And who hired them?
JM: Companies that were established just for those purposes… companies that disappeared not long after the work was done.
DM: Do you keep records from those years, regarding all these people?
JM: We no longer have physical records of that time. All the documents got lost after Hurricane Sandy hit and the warehouse we had rented was destroyed. But we kept a digital version in a hard drive, which we opened for the last time about six years ago.
DM: I have been reading some documents and looking for information about a particular case, Fernando Jimenez. I found interesting how his case was dismissed by the authorities for the same reasons as the case of an Indian-American citizen who went missing on the night before. However, her family would later file an appeal, and eventually she would gain recognition as a 9/11 victim. This, of course, was not the case of Fernando, whose death was left in a limbo. One could argue if at the bottom this is the case of someone whose existence and death were denied just because he didn’t have documents.
JM: We didn’t include Fernando’s case in our records. I remember his mother refused to fight back Fernando’s exclusion. She did not want compensation, money – nothing but something that belonged to her son. A shirt, anything. But not money. She even had a disagreement with Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when they said she just wanted the compensation money.
DM: Right. I see. But, wouldn’t you say that if she had had the means back then to legally challenge the city’s decision not to recognize her son…
JM: Fernando lived here alone. All his family was back in Oaxaca, and we brought his mother with a visa, so in strict terms she had the means to pursue legal remedies.
DM: OK. But, being undocumented immigrants…
JM: The immigration issue was resolved from the beginning. Most of the people we helped lost their fear about coming forward in those days. We reached an agreement with immigration authorities, they even published it, and they agreed not to prosecute anyone in the aftermath due to their illegal status.
DM: So, wouldn’t you say that was an element to factor in when deciding who a victim was?
JM: I mean, families of undocumented immigrants who resided here didn’t fear to come forward and asked to be recognized as victims. However, this didn’t mean that authorities had the same openness and proactiveness when it came to the legal procedures of those undocumented. Not being able to prove you lived here, lacking documents to that effect, meant the people never existed. Period. They never existed.
DM: And do you think they applied the same standard to assess if [other] people were connected to the Twin Towers?
JM: Right, something one wonders. We also screened the cases we registered. Those 57 were cases in which we found enough evidence. But we also rejected other cases, three cases. After researching and analyzing information provided by those families, visiting them in their homes, we decided there were not enough merits. We even handed one of these cases to the FBI. They turned out to be a Guatemalan gang that trafficked with children.