"Advocates say workers risk their health and fear speaking out about conditions amid Trump’s immigration crackdown"
"On a sunny day in February three workers swept up the piles of ash left behind on an Altadena driveway from when the Eaton fire raged through the Los Angeles neighborhood the month before.
The flames of the blaze had consumed nearly every home on the street, leaving only brick chimneys and charred vehicles. Red signs at the entrances of properties warned in English: “Unsafe, do not enter or occupy … entry may result in death or injury.” Hazards such as lead paint, asbestos and batteries were strewn amongst the ashes, but few workers cleaning the neighborhood that day wore masks or other personal protective equipment (PPE).
Across the street, in the ashes of a home that had burned to the ground, Pedro Ramos, wore a thin blue medical mask as he picked up charred branches and placed them in a wheelbarrow. “The truth is that it’s toxic,” Ramos, who is from Guatemala, said in Spanish about the debris. “But it’s necessary to work to pay the rent and bills for my family.”
In the US, after climate disasters such as fires, floods and hurricanes, it is often immigrant workers who clean up and rebuild communities. In Los Angeles, it’s no different. In the burn zones of Altadena and the Palisades, many of the thousands of workers involved in clearing the debris from the megafires that killed 30 people and destroyed about 16,000 are from an immigrant background. Immigrants make up about 40% of the construction workforce in California, including hazardous materials removal. Those workers are particularly vulnerable while working in potentially hazardous conditions, say advocates."
Hilary Beaumont reports for the Guardian April 28, 2025.
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