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For Illegal Immigrants, Some Aid Is Too Risky
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"Thank God for the church," he said. "We would be sleeping in the parking lot now, no doubt."
But others are helping.
In Mississippi, a group called Project Prep braved floodwaters in Biloxi to get aid to Latino migrant farmworkers and others who feared deportation, said John D. Arnold, the project's director and co-founder.
Jacob Prado, who is coordinating relief efforts for the Mexican Embassy, distributed cash and airline tickets in and around Biloxi to Mexican citizens wishing to return home, an embassy spokesman said.
In San Antonio, a convoy of 45 Mexican army vehicles rolled into the city with troops and mobile kitchens capable of feeding 14,000 people. Elsewhere in Texas, Catholic Charities of Galveston/Houston doled out $300,000 to immigrant families as of Friday -- about $25,000 a day, said Julissa Guerrero, the communications director.
"As quickly as the donations are coming in, they are going right back out," she said. "We are worried that people who are undocumented are falling through the cracks."
In Louisiana, Diane Chisholm, the director of migration and refugee services for Catholic Community Services of Baton Rouge, said documented and undocumented Latinos have poured through the group's doors every day for a week.
"I can say it's been hundreds of people," Chisholm said Monday.
Almicar and other immigrants living at the motel in East Baton Rouge Parish were residents of Metairie, La., near the New Orleans airport.
On the Saturday before Katrina struck, Buchanan was doing the wash when the New Orleans mayor said on television, in English, "We're facing the storm most of us have feared."
She woke her sleeping husband, who snapped at her. "How are we going to go? We don't have money." He eventually agreed to go and borrowed money from a friend.
"Hispanic friends . . . followed us because they didn't know where to go," Buchanan said. "They followed us because we speak English."
They formed a caravan of five rickety cars, one of which broke down en route to Baton Rouge.
The men work where they can find it, usually in towns more than an hour away. It costs about $20 in gas per trip, eating into their pay of about $90 each.
Right now, Reyes said, work is worth the sacrifice. The motel rooms are too precious to give up.
"If you leave, there are three people waiting to take them," he said. "It's all we have right now."
