Hour by hour, day by day, hurricane-devastated Southwest Florida is getting back on its feet — and the workers doing the hard labor are mostly undocumented migrants.

They have names like Jael, Juan, and Francisco Antonio, and they flocked to Florida from other Gulf Coast states and even Mexico to take jobs.

Many are perpetual nomads, traveling from one natural disaster to the next, toiling during the day and sleeping in cars and trucks at night.

Ever since Hurricane Ian struck southwest Florida on September 28, killing about 125 people and causing tens of billions of dollars in damage, workers have been busy demolishing damaged homes, clearing debris, repairing roofs and beginning reconstruction .

Ian was a dangerous Category 4 storm monster, and the rebuilding work has been intense and crucial to recovery in a state led by Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been trying to make a national name for himself as a crusader against the very immigrants who are undergoing the rebuild.

A little over a week before the storm hit, the Republican governor chartered two planes to ferry migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, a scenic vacation spot in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts.

The flights made headlines, underscoring the dissatisfaction of DeSantis and many other Republican leaders at how President Joe Biden, a Democrat, is handling a migrant crisis at the Mexico border.

Francisco Antonio Rivera, a 46-year-old Honduran, doesn’t like DeSantis politics. But that didn’t stop him from traveling to Fort Myers, the epicenter of the hurricane-ravaged area, to offer his bricklaying services.

“Latinos are the heart of the United States. Nonetheless, when they come here, they arrest us and treat us as they please,” he said with resignation in his voice.

Rivera is undocumented and has lived in New Orleans, Louisiana for 17 years. He has experience in disaster recovery. He worked in Panama City in the Florida Panhandle after Hurricane Michael struck in 2018 and in Louisiana in 2021 after Hurricane Ida struck.

On a recent Wednesday, Rivera was unlucky. Nobody hired him for the day. So he waits, a cap on his head to protect him from the sun, sitting on the open trunk of his car.

Around him, a dozen other Latinos hang out with him, waiting in the parking lot of a hardware store. Homeowners and contractors come to places like this most days to hire day laborers.

There is no shortage of work in Fort Myers Beach. More than a month after the storm, debris lines the streets of the offshore island, where the hurricane ripped off roofs, knocked down walls and submerged scores of homes with a storm surge.

Thousands of migrants toil in Southwest Florida these days, said Saket Soni, director of Resilience Force, a nonprofit that helps U.S. cities recover from disasters.

This nomadic workforce, composed mostly of Latinos, is what “makes recovery after natural disasters possible,” Soni said. “They are rebuilding houses, schools and hospitals. They kind of help put the broken infrastructure back together.”

They work under the sun and in the rain. They climb rooftops, handle chemical products, and then sleep in their cars at night because they have nowhere else to go, Soni said.

“When we go to work, we do it with enthusiasm and hope to get ahead,” says Jael Cruz, 44, a Honduran who traveled to Fort Myers from Texas.

“When you come from a country like ours, you seek the American dream, and the American dream is to work.”

But the desire to work undocumented leaves workers exposed to potential abuse from employers, and sometimes they are scrounged over wages, paid less than promised and threatened with being handed over to immigration authorities if they complain said Soni.

Juan Martínez, a Mexican man who asked to use a pseudonym for fear of immigration officials, received a friendly visit from Resilience Force officials a few days ago.

He has since carried a card reminding him to “ask for an advance payment for work to be done” and to take “before and after photos of the work.”

The 50-year-old Mexican was traveling from his home to Fort Myers when he heard the news of Ian’s devastation. He had made the same trip to work there after Hurricanes Michael and Ida and knew Florida would need help from Freemasons like him.

He had found work on several construction sites and so far has said homeowners have treated him fairly.

He only hopes that his work – and that of other workers – can change the attitudes of the authorities and residents of the region.

“We need them and they need us,” Martinez said. “I want them to realize that we’re here to help.”