While full details about the workers who perished in the Baltimore bridge collapse have not been released publicly at the time of writing, we know they came to the US from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
About 130,000 immigrants work in the construction industry in the regions in and around Baltimore and the neighbouring national capital. They make up 39 per cent of that workforce, The Washington Post reported, citing Casa, a Maryland-based Latino and immigration advocacy organisation.
And, as was widely reported in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s spectacular demise, at least three members of this community were among those fatally struck by two drivers while doing roadwork a few miles northwest of the port just days before the bridge fell.
While American politicians compete with each other to take the hardest line possible on immigration, the ones they malign day in and day out are outside working in extreme temperatures, next to traffic that might veer into them, to ensure that the ideologues that vilify them can get to their offices.
While the baseless election denialism that undergirds the new Republican Party might be new, narratives that demonise immigrants are not.
The Irish, Jews and southern Europeans that made up the lion’s share of immigrants to the US in the early 20th century were portrayed by many established Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent as prone to criminal behaviour or threats to the country’s social fabric.
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Six presumed dead after Singapore-flagged cargo ship topples Baltimore bridge
Six presumed dead after Singapore-flagged cargo ship topples Baltimore bridge
According to an analysis of federal labour statistics and census data by UCLA economist and professor Robert Fairlie published in February, some 670 out of every 100,000 immigrants, or 0.67 per cent, established businesses last year on a monthly basis, compared to 0.35 per cent for the total population.
The data goes on to show the lie that Latinos and blacks are a net negative economically, with a 0.6 per cent business start-up rate for the former and 0.34 per cent for the latter, against 0.28 per cent for white Americans.
These statistics and countless others show how the vast majority of those leaving their lives behind to come to the US with nothing but a determination to live the American dream play an essential role in building the country.
There’s a reason that the fearmongering politicians never show data that supports their narrative about immigrants: there isn’t any.
They should hope that enough new immigrants make it into the construction crews of Baltimore and Washington so they can get to their jobs.
Robert Delaney is the Post’s North America bureau chief