Workers who toiled cleaning up debris at Ground Zero said they felt betrayed by authorities and upset about the lack of settlement on their immigration status.

Coinciding with the visit of Janet Napolitano, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, to New York City, Ground Zero workers said they are worse off because of the authorities' lack of support for dealing with their health problems, not to mention no support at all for fixing their legal status in the country.

These ex-workers, who saw to it that rubble was cleared away after the attacks on September 11, 2001, said that the vows of government officials and authorities to give them assistance became false promises.

In their own words, the lives of some of the ex-employees who cleaned up Ground Zero have only gotten worse. "I have respiratory and gastrointestinal problems, I have trouble breathing and I can't get work without papers," said Rubiela Arias, 33, who came to the United States in 1988.

The death toll climbs

Arias is one of many workers who gave her time and effort to collect debris after the largest catastrophe this country has ever experienced; however, today she has no job and relies on the help of churches to survive and take care of her 16-year-old daughter.

Arias added that, by her calculations, according to information she received from one of the hospitals that treats her many ailments she has to deal with, to date some 900 people have died because they worked at Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers once stood.

Saul Lopez, a Mexican, who was able to obtain legal status in the 1980s, said he knows how it feels to be undocumented. "I was in that same position, I had the same experiences and that's why I want to help other Latinos who are waiting to receive their papers. It's only just, even more so when you consider that they have worked hard for this country and dedicated many years of their lives to it."