COVID and its Implications
Undocumented immigrants in Southern states have faced disproportionate harm during COVID-19 due to systemic barriers in healthcare and socioeconomic factors. Many worked on the pandemic’s frontlines – up to 80% of undocumented adults held “essential” jobs in sectors like agriculture, construction, and food processing. This high exposure was compounded by limited healthcare access and insurance coverage. Fear also kept people from care; according to the KFF, over a quarter of undocumented adults avoided medical or social assistance during the pandemic due to immigration-related fears.
Inability to quarantine effectively puts these communities at even greater risk. Many undocumented families live in crowded conditions and cannot afford to stop working. For example, farmworkers in Immokalee, Florida, often “rent mobile homes, with up to four people in a single room,” and travel to the fields in packed buses. “If you need to stay home for two weeks [to quarantine], you’re not going to get paid,” explained one organizer, noting that missing work could cost workers their housing – “an impossible position” for those living paycheck to paycheck. Even when sick, fear of deportation deterred people from seeking help. A local official in Immokalee reported that residents were “fearful to admit they are symptomatic for fear of deportation,” leading many to forgo testing or treatment. Similar patterns appeared across the South’s immigrant communities.
Exclusion from public relief measures deepened these hardships. Undocumented workers, despite paying taxes, were barred from federal COVID-19 aid like stimulus checks and unemployment benefits. An estimated 9.3 million unauthorized immigrants with qualifying incomes received no stimulus support. Most Southern states provided little or no local relief, leaving families to rely on charities. Meanwhile, border policies like Title 42 had disparate impacts on migrant families. This emergency rule (invoked in 2020) enabled the rapid expulsion of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border without normal due process. Over two million expulsions were carried out under Title 42, disproportionately affecting Latin American and Caribbean asylum seekers. In Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, health workers observed that Title 42’s climate of intensified enforcement increased fear among immigrant residents and discouraged them from accessing healthcare or vaccination programs.
Regional examples highlight these challenges. Gainesville, Georgia – a poultry industry hub where about 12% of residents are undocumented – saw 56% of local COVID-19 cases occur among Latino (largely immigrant) residents. In Immokalee, Florida, a lack of healthcare access and scarce testing led to one of the state’s densest outbreaks. Migrant farm camps in rural Tennessee and meatpacking plants across the South also experienced intense surges. These outbreaks underscore how tightly packed workplaces and housing, combined with limited protections, leave undocumented communities highly vulnerable.
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