Progressive activists and open border advocates are using the death of several immigrants in the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse to push for increased immigration numbers in the United States. The deadly accident has claimed the lives of at least six immigrant workers.

Several non-profit groups that provide aid to illegal immigrants and push for increased immigrant numbers in the U.S. have seized on the deaths to push their open-borders agenda. “American workers got to sleep in their beds and not get hit by a cargo ship because immigrant workers went to work to fill potholes,” wrote David Bier in a post on X (formerly Twitter). Bier, who works for the pro-open borders Cato Institute, added: “Can’t wait for immigrants to rebuild this bridge bigger and better than ever.”

Other non-profit organizations like Global Refuge and United We Dream — which aid mass immigration through charitable programs — stressed the need for immigrant labor to help rebuild the collapsed bridge. “We know we can and we will rebuild,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, CEO of Global Refuge, said in a statement. He continued: “And we also know the contributions of our immigrant brothers and sisters will continue to be essential in that effort.”

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, called the use of the immigrant worker deaths to promote mass immigration policies “kind of creepy.” He added: “Most of the people who do this are Americans. In this case, for any number of reasons, these guys were immigrants … There’s just no [immigration] policy implications to draw from this [tragedy].”

Responding to Bier’s posts on X, Oren Cass, who runs the pro-worker American Compass think tank, said: “It’s important to understand that for many libertarians, their open borders advocacy leading to a Qatar-like caste system in America is a feature, not a bug.”