Undocumented immigrants are among those hit “first — and worst” by COVID-19’s economic impact, reports Tracy Jan for The Washington Post. Millions of undocumented immigrants “working in construction, restaurants, and other service sectors, have already lost their jobs,” Jan writes. “Others, in industries like agriculture and health care that have been declared essential, work in jobs that typically require close quarters or interacting with the public, putting them at a higher risk of getting sick.” As we’ve previously mentioned in the Notes, these workers are especially economically vulnerable because they can’t count on a social safety net; even those who pay taxes will not receive unemployment insurance or cash payments included in the stimulus passed by Congress last month.

Among those workers are undocumented immigrants working as housekeepers and nannies, write Annie Correal and Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura for The New York Times. The reporters spoke to several domestic workers in Manhattan who “climb onto subways and buses to go clean and sustain the homes of people who can afford to self-quarantine.” Luz, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, told the Times she is working even harder for her employers on the Upper East Side, cooking for the family and entertaining the children, one of whom has a classmate diagnosed with the virus. “You run a risk each time you step out of your home,” she said.

As I wrote on Medium, “The dominoes will fall the hardest on those with the least.”

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

NEEDED – Even though the CARES Act did not provide any sort of relief to undocumented immigrant workers — or even mixed status families — the Trump administration realizes immigrant workers are needed to keep America operating. Politico’s Anita Kumar reports that the administration “is easing requirements for immigrants to get jobs as farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers, aware that industries, including those that fill grocery store shelves, could be hurt if they couldn’t hire foreign employees.”

ESSENTIAL – Immigrant farmworkers — many of whom are undocumented and live in fear of deportation — are in the new position of being considered “essential” workers by the U.S. government, writes Miriam Jordan for The New York Times. “It’s like suddenly they realized we are here contributing,” said Nancy Silva, an undocumented farmworker from Mexico who now holds a letter from her employer affirming that the Department of Homeland Security has deemed her “critical to the food supply chain.” At least one million crop hands in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants, and are responsible for a “massive volume of produce to be harvested between now and August.”

HIGH RISK – Texas communities along the border — home to a large population of residents considered “high-risk” — are lagging far behind when it comes to accessing COVID-19 testing, Jeremy Schwartz and Lomi Kriel report for ProPublica and the Texas Tribune. “While many places across the country are struggling to get enough testing, the problems are magnified in the Rio Grande Valley. It has among the highest poverty rates in the state, nearly half of its residents don’t have health insurance, and chronic conditions are rife.” One in 10 of Texas’s undocumented immigrants also live in the region, and experts are concerned they will forgo seeking help in order to avoid immigration consequences , further fueling the spread of the virus.


SAVING LIVES – In an interview for Forbes, Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, spoke with William Stock of Klasko Immigration Law Partners about how current immigration laws are preventing more foreign-born nurses and physicians from helping save lives in America during the coronavirus pandemic. Anderson and Klasko discuss solutions the administration could take in order to help bring more critical health care professionals to the front lines: “We shouldn’t allow visa restrictions to prevent [immigrants] from doing their jobs or make it impossible to provide the lifesaving help so many Americans desperately need,” Stock says.

DACA RECIPIENTS – A Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to terminate Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) could mean the deportation of thousands of health care workers currently on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis, write Bill Aseltyne, Beth Essig, Debra L. Zumwalt and Abbe R. Gluck in an op-ed for The New York Times. Aseltyne, Essig, and Zumwalt are general counsel for top health care systems. Gluck is a law professor and director of Yale’s Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy. “If the Supreme Court allows the termination of DACA during this pandemic, the work of our hospitals will suffer a critical blow at exactly the moment when we can least afford it,” they write.

Stay safe, stay healthy.

Ali