Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying

MiamiHerald.com | 08/20/2006 | Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying: "Grief in Honduras after Fort Lauderdale slaying
BY MELISSA SANCHEZ
mesanchez@MiamiHerald.com

JUTICALPA, Honduras - The men left their young families behind in this poor city next to the mountains and settled in a strange place called Fort Lauderdale.

There, they found lawns that needed mowing, cars that needed washing, sheetrock that needed hanging -- and people willing to pay decent wages for such work.

The money that Oscar Castro and José Alfredo Sánchez sent home to their wives and children bought a refrigerator, furniture, private schools and food. It even afforded them a taste of middle-class Americana: buying on credit.

All the while, of course, the men were breaking the law. Castro and Sánchez had entered the United States illegally, like an estimated 10.5 million others who have since become the subject of the nation's emotional debate over undocumented immigrants.

To see another side of the issue, The Miami Herald went to Juticalpa this summer, to visit the parents, the children and the wives Castro and Sánchez had left behind.

The men went back as well. They were in coffins."