Biden Surveys Collapsed Baltimore Bridge, Pledges Help, meets family members of the victims of the accident

 President Joe Biden took an aerial tour on Friday 5 April of the collapsed Baltimore bridge that is blocking a key East Coast shipping lane, and he pledged federal help in rebuilding the span, an idea some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have resisted.

Aboard his Marine One helicopter, Biden flew over the scene of the disaster, where six people were killed, to get an aerial view. He met local officials for a briefing on the economic impact to the Baltimore port, an important shipping destination for ships to offload automobiles.

He also vowed that the parties responsible for the bridge collapse will help pay to repair the damage and “be held accountable to the fullest extent the law will allow.”

Biden later met the families of the six people killed in the accident. 

The six victims of the bridge collapse were all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, who were fixing potholes on the road surface of the bridge when it collapsed. Four of the bodies have still not been recovered, but all are presumed dead.

Biden’s meeting with the families of these immigrant workers comes as his rival Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric and cast migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America.