By John Moreno Gonzales
STAFF WRITER

Newsday

October 1, 2001

Luz María Mendoza cannot embrace her husband, so she embraces the remnants of his New York life.

"I sleep on his mattress, on the same side I used to," she said, her eyes scanning the Brooklyn basement that her spouse settled in after leaving Mexico. "It's a small bed, but it's a comfortable one."

A week ago, Mendoza, 31, came to the United States with assistance from her home state of Morelos to search for her husband, Juan Ortega, 33, a deliveryman working at the World Trade Center complex when it was destroyed.

But as hopes for his survival have dimmed with each news report on Spanish-language television, Mendoza now finds herself searching for financial help for herself and her three school-aged children. But when Mendoza went to the same place as other families who have already received help - the city's family assistance center on 12th Avenue in Manhattan - she walked away empty-handed.

The problem: Though Ortega and thousands of undocumented immigrant workers like him contributed mightily to the downtown economy, they were "off the payroll, so there are no records," explained Joel Magallán, a Jesuit brother and executive director of Asociación Tepeyac de New York. "And employers are not going to report them missing because they're afraid of sanctions."

Magallán says his group has compiled a list of 65 immigrant workers, missing in the trade center disaster, the "disappeared," and about 400 workers who are now unemployed, their livelihoods unreachable in the barricaded zone around the center. These are people whose daily labor was "helping three economies," he said. "The economies of the U.S., of their families here, and their families in their own country."

But neither the families of the missing nor the unemployed workers themselves had received a penny of help by the end of the week, Magallán said, despite attempts made at several key help centers.

On Saturday, however, the workers seemed to pick up a powerful ally.

During his afternoon news briefing, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani called on undocumented workers to either file a missing persons report or seek a death certificate for loved ones missing in the attack, suggesting that such action could be a first step in gaining relief.

In urging this action, Giuliani promised to use "whatever influence I have over benefits" available to guarantee that relief funds "will be shared with you" on an equitable basis. "I don't know about all of the public benefits, whether that's possible," he said, but he promised his administration would explore what is possible.

He also said that registering for help at this time would not jeopardize a worker's immigration status, noting that the director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service had assured him that "no one is going to be ... proceeded against, or in any way affected by this procedure."

It was a somewhat different message than the one heard by workers earlier in the week.

Last Wednesday, 15 undocumented workers who sought help at the Bronx offices of the state Crime Victims Board were turned away when they were unable to supply social security numbers.

They had traveled to the board's office with Oscar Saracho, a staff member with Tepeyac who had been told by workers at the Manhattan family center that the Crime Victims Board could provide up to $1,200 in assistance, regardless of immigration status. But when Saracho went to the board, he was handed forms to be filled out by employers, calling for Social Security numbers none of the workers possessed.

Ruben Gomez, 26, who fled the trade center with others working in a deli kitchen, was clearly startled by the official response."I heard the first plane hit like a train. I ran out, looked up and saw the second plane hit," he said, noting that his job had now disappeared. "But I don't have a Social Security number," so he wasn't able to get benefits.

And Saracho was clearly deflated after volunteering 14-hour days to account for the missing and to find financial assistance for survivors. "This process," he told the workers, "is as new to me as it is to you."

A representative of Safe Horizon, the nonprofit that provides funds to the Crime Victims Board, came to the sidewalk where the workers gathered. She explained that administrators were discussing whether the undocumented could be accommodated in the absence of traditional employment records.

"The board has been very liberal with the funds, but this is something under review," said the representative, who requested anonymity.

Meanwhile, Jon Small, president of the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, a group that helps charitable and social service organizations work together, said he knew of no funds specifically aimed at helping undocumented workers or their families.

Bad news for Sergio Ocampo, whose $728 monthly rent for an apartment on 183rd Street in Manhattan is due.

Ocampo was a cook at a now-closed restaurant two blocks from the trade center. His wife, Yolanda, will be able to meet some of the expenses through her job at a jewelry store, he said. But the couple has always relied on a shared income to support 7- and 4-year-old girls and a son in college.

"Right now there is no work," said Ocampo, 48, who came from Cuernavaca, Mexico, to find employment in the United States. "There are so many like us who lost jobs, everyone is searching at once.

"It's incredible that this happened," he added, dismayed that those suspected in the attack did so in the name of the global poor.

All they did was injure the disenfranchised, he said. "All they did was hurt us."

Indeed, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger called last week for more food stamp outreach and government donations, expecting long pantry and soup kitchen lines this winter as job losses from the disaster take hold. Food for Survival, an organization comprised of 1,200 soup kitchens and food pantries in the city, has already received 12 tractor-trailers of donated goods a day.

Before the disaster, work was hard and pay was low for undocumented immigrants. But those days now seem idyllic to Luz María Mendoza.

During the year and a half Ortega was away, he sent home about $400 a month from his job at the World Trade Center, Mendoza said.

While most of that money helped Mendoza properly care for their children, Juan Carlos, 13, Edgar Santiago, 11, and Giovanna, 9, she said she also put aside a little each time so the family could one day afford to leave a crowded house they shared with relatives.

"He wanted to build another home when he came back," Mendoza said. "Something where we'd all fit."

He also called frequently, she said, detailing his new world - the Hasidic families who passed his door; the quirky roommate Miguel, who woke up the old apartment with bright wall paint; the sight-seeing trip to Washington, D.C.

"Now I'm afraid that I'll go home without his body, without anything that proves his death and life here," Mendoza said. "I'll have to face our children empty-handed."

Staff writer Joshua Robin contributed to this story.