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CNN Live At Daybreak

Spirit of America: Families of Undocumented Immigrants Killed in 9/11 Attacks Go Without Aid

Aired October 23, 2001 - 07:53   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The nation has opened its hearts and its wallets to the victims and families of last month's attacks, but some of the families have gone almost without notice, and without help. They are the families of illegal immigrants who were killed.

CNN's Maria Hinojosa reports on the search for two men who worked at Windows on the World, the restaurant that sat on top of the World Trade Center.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Cristobol Lopez might blend in on any New York City street, if it wasn't for the sadness and worry etched deep on his Aztec face. He's come on a journey from Los Angeles to search for his missing brother, Leobardo. He makes the rounds...

CRISTOBOL LOPEZ: Thank you very much.

HINOJOSA: ... picking up Leobardo's last paycheck, cashing it here, sending it there, to his brother's family in Mexico, where a wife and four small children await word. Things so mundane, things everyone who lost a relative in the Tower attacks are doing.

But like his brother, who worked and died at Windows on the World, Cristobol is in this country alone without papers, officially invisible, with no legal right to be here, but with the emotional need for closure.

"It would be nice," he says, "bonito," if he could find Leobardo's body, have something for the family back in Acaplan (ph) puebla.

But what he finds instead is more sadness. His brother Leobardo came to New York City three years ago from Mexico to join his best friend, Antonio Melendez. Antonio said there would be a job for him at Windows on the World. That's where they were when both men died.

That's Leobardo's first Christmas in New York City, alone in the corner. And that's Antonio hugging his wife. He was also undocumented, with four children of his own. The men who had worked together, dreamed together of a better life, have left eight children, two wives, and all of those dreams behind. (on camera): What would you say to your father?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I say when I am going to have (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

HINOJOSA (voice-over): Those dreams and the memories are fresh for Antonio's 8-year-old daughter, who lives in the two-room apartment they all shared in the Bronx.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My father was nice. He was a good father, a good husband. He didn't like to go out with the friends; he always liked to be with his family.

HINOJOSA: To be with his 1-year-old, Saul, to be the strong father for his oldest, Marco, for his daughters, advice about why being in New York, so far from Mexico, would be good for them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wanted to get a house so we could live here.

HINOJOSA: But in the Bronx, the rent is dangerously overdue, and back in Mexico, Leobardo's checks have stopped coming. Antonio's wife, Julia, like Cristobal, is left with little official aid -- no Social Security, no unemployment checks, no life insurance -- no government aid for people who worked without government documents. The only thing left are tears, and two families hoping their men come back alive.

"All of our lives, we will wait for him," she says, "forever."

Maria Hinojosa, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: How sad.

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