Recovering the Forgotten: The Effects of September 11th on Undocumented Latin American Victims and Families

Abstract

This article examines the extent to which undocumented immigrant families were able to access funds designated for the victims of September 11th. We take one community-based organization, Asociación Tepeyac de New York, or the Tepeyac Association of New York, as a case study of an independent agency that attempted to aid Latin American victims and families in meeting their emergency and long-term needs. We focus particularly on those families whose difficulties were the direct result of their irregular immigration status. A qualitative analysis of the factors that either enabled or hindered the families of undocumented victims to access goverment aid are contrasted across six cases, half of which were families residing in New York and half of which were families residing in Latin America. Findings revealed that even the cases with substantive proof were unable to access comparable amounts of government aid made available to other victims of the World Trade Center tragedy. They further illustrate that the unfortunate circumstances of undocumented September 11th victims were particularly salient during this time, but characterized the lives of undocumented immigrants in general whose lack of legal papers render them invisible and incapable of accessing the legal and monetary aid to which they are entitled in US society.