Mexico president says Baltimore bridge collapse shows migrants 'do not deserve to be treated as they are'

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore shows that “migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight” and as a result they “do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States.” 

López Obrador made the remark as Maryland State Police identified one of the two bodies removed from the Patapsco River on Wednesday as 35-year-old Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, originally from Mexico. 

“Based upon the conditions, we’re now moving from a recovery mode to a salvage operation because of the superstructure surrounding what we believe are the vehicles and the amount of concrete and debris; divers are no longer able to safely navigate or operate around that in the areas around this wreckage,” Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, said during a press conference Wednesday night. 

Guatemalan Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, was identified by Butler as the other body removed from the water. Divers had found a red pickup truck submerged under approximately 25 feet of water in the middle span of the bridge and discovered the two bodies trapped inside. 

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The wreckage of Francis Scott Key Bridge as seen from Dundalk, Maryland,  on Wednesday, March 27. (AP/Matt Rourke)

Four other construction workers are presumed dead following Tuesday’s disaster, in which the cargo ship Dali slammed into one of the bridge’s pillars in the early morning hours, causing the span to collapse. They are also from Guatemala and El Salvador. 

Another victim has been identified as 38-year-old Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, who was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras, according to The Associated Press. 

Sandoval left Honduras for the U.S. 18 years ago and entered the country illegally before settling in Maryland and doing any work he could find, including construction and clearing brush, according to the news agency. He then started a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area, his brother Martín Suazo Sandoval said. 

2 BODIES RECOVERED FOLLOWING BALTIMORE BRIDGE COLLAPSE 

Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, a 38-year-old from Honduras, who is among those still missing. (Martin Suazo Sandoval/AP)

“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” Martín Suazo Sandoval told the AP. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.” 

Maynor has a wife and two children ages 17 and 5, his brother also said. The coronavirus pandemic forced Maynor to find other work, and he joined Brawner Builders, the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge when it collapsed. 

Martín Suazo Sandoval said Maynor never talked about being scared of the work, despite the heights he worked at on the bridges: “He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead. He said it didn’t matter what time or where the job was, you had to be where the work was.” 

In this image taken from video released by the National Transportation and Safety Board, the cargo ship Dali is stuck under part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship hit the bridge, on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (NTSB/AP)

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The Honduran was moving through the steps to get legal residency and planned to return to his home country this year to complete the process, his brother said. 

Fox News’ Bradford Betz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.