SALT LAKE CITY — On the evening of May 14, Veva, a 44-year-old mother of three, received a phone call from the hospital about her husband, who had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Her 44-year-old husband’s condition had neither worsened nor improved, a nurse told her. Prior to his hospitalization, Veva’s husband worked for a manufacturing company in Utah. After his symptoms began on April 22, he tested positive for the novel coronavirus and stopped working to quarantine himself.
Soon after, Veva and two of her children, a 22-year-old and a 15-year-old, tested positive as well; her 21-year-old daughter currently lives in California serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Undocumented immigrants like Veva, who spoke on condition her last name not be used, have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. Unable to stay home and lose out on months of pay, they’re more likely to contract the virus in jobs that demand contact with others. By one estimate, immigrants make up 15.7% of the health care labor force and nearly 50% of crop farmworkers according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
They also work in industries that have shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the past months — immigrants make up roughly 20% of workers in the hotel and restaurant industry. Plus, they were left out of the nation’s safety net, and are finding it harder to access aid.
“We don’t have any type of help,” Veva said.
While Hispanics and Latinos make up 14.2% of Utah’s population, they currently have 38% of the state’s COVID-19 cases, according to data from the Utah Department of Health. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders make up 1.6% of the state’s population, but 3.5% of coronavirus cases.
Prior to seeing Utah data showing COVID-19’s disproportionate impact to communities of color, Mark Alvarez, who formerly worked in the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Office as the administrator of minority affairs and currently works as an attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Group in West Valley City, said he knew the pandemic would have a “dire” impact on the Latino and Pacific Islander community.
“Those people (undocumented immigrants) are still members of our community and if they are more exposed to coronavirus or COVID-19 that ultimately leads to greater exposure for us as well,” Alvarez said. “ ... It doesn’t help us by excluding them from a joint effort to combat coronavirus.”
Excluded from aid
Initially, Veva, who is from Mexico City, thought her teenage daughter, who was born in the U.S., qualified for a stimulus check. But because Veva and her husband are undocumented they did not receive $1,200 or the additional $500 per child that many Americans citizens did.
Some mixed status immigrant families are eligible for programs like Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, said Margarite Allen, the Health Outreach Manager at Holy Cross Ministries, a nonprofit that provides assistance to underserved communities in Utah.
But many of her clients have been hesitant to sign up, Allen said.
That’s because before the coronavirus fully hit the U.S., a new law passed that made it harder for immigrants who accessed public benefits, like food stamps or housing assistance, to become permanent residents.
Immigrant families that were worried about hurting their green card or citizenship cases dropped out of public assistance programs — in New York, enrollment for WIC decreased by 18.7% from January 2017 to June 2019 in neighborhoods that had large populations of noncitizen residents according to Politico.
Although the final ruling was a lot narrower than expected (using WIC will not be counted against immigrants applying for citizenship) it’s taken awhile for people like Allen to help families sign up for programs that they need now more than ever.
Undocumented immigrants are also being asked to stay home, losing work and dealing with kids stuck at home, Maria Montes, the community engagement and advocacy coordinator at Comunidades Unidas, a nonprofit in Utah that provides assistance to members of the Latino community, said.
However, their status adds an extra hurdle, and layer of fear.
They are scared that if they go out and seek services or resources for their families, they will be penalized and jeopardize their ability to become citizens in the future, Montes said.
No insurance
A 40-year-old single mother from Puebla, Mexico, said she began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms two weeks after she was laid off as a cook in mid-March — the restaurant where she worked closed its doors due to the coronavirus.
The woman, who requested her name not be used due to her undocumented status, said she felt so weak and tired she had to ask her 14-year-old son to help her go to the bathroom. After going to a hospital in Layton to see a doctor for her symptoms, she was tested for influenza and COVID-19. A day later, she received a call from her doctor and was told she had tested negative for both illnesses.
But two days later while recovering at home, she said she received another call from her doctor’s office and was told she actually did have the novel coronavirus.
One of the most difficult experiences of being sick, she said, was not allowing her 3-year-old to sleep in the same room as her and hearing her child cry at night outside her door.
“It was impossible to be separated from them,” she said.
Despite separating herself from her family inside the home and making homemade face masks from her bra cups for her children to use, 4 out of her 5 children eventually tested positive, too. Luckily, her children recovered quickly without having many symptoms, she said.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” she said if her children’s symptoms had worsened.
She said she’s fortunate that members of her Catholic Church have delivered food to her family outside her front door and that nearby extended family members have helped with her medical costs as she has no insurance.
Noncitizen immigrants are more likely to be uninsured than citizens according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The study also found that about 45% of undocumented immigrants under the age of 65 were uninsured, compared to 9% of citizens.
Not only is getting access to care a barrier, but taking the proper social distancing measures once someone in the family is sick can also be difficult.
One state steps in
Most undocumented immigrants across the country have had to turn to mutual aid programs, or nonprofits such as Comunidades Unidas and Holy Cross Ministries for assistance.
In May, California’s state government allotted $75 million to help undocumented immigrants, according to The Los Angeles Times. California undocumented immigrants can begin applying for the payments of $500 per person or up to $1,000 per household. However, the conservative group The Center for American Liberty has sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom for dispersing relief to the undocumented Californians.
“California has been much more immigrant-friendly than some other states have been,” Alvarez said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
The fund will provide relief to approximately 150,000 immigrants, while there are an estimated 2.2 million undocumented immigrants in the state.
On the first day the program rolled out, phone lines crashed and many people seeking help were unable to get through.
“We’re really grateful to the governor, but there are still a lot of people that are going to be really hard hit,” Sarah Dar, the director of Health & Public Benefits Policy at California Immigrant Policy Center said.
Dar’s organization has been pushing for an expansion of MediCal — the state’s version of Medicaid, to undocumented immigrants and greater access to other social services.
“Besides that paperwork, they’re working in our economy. They’re home care workers, they’re agricultural workers. They are the backbone of our economy. They’re part of the social fabric of this state. They are Californians in every other way,” Dar said.
Final cost
After Veva’s husband was diagnosed, he experienced a throbbing headache, tiredness and a high fever for 10 days. As most of Veva’s family recovered, her husband’s conditions worsened and he began to have trouble breathing. On May 3, more than a week after his symptoms began, he was hospitalized. Six days later, he was intubated and put on a ventilator. In addition to the health crisis Veva’s family is facing, she also worries about a financial one.
Since she was laid off from her part-time job at a cafe, she does not qualify for unemployment. Prior to losing her job, her oldest son, 22, was also laid off from his part-time job at a local car dealership and her husband’s hours were reduced in March because of the pandemic. Veva said her family has no savings due to the reduced hours and layoffs caused by the pandemic.
And although her family has lost work and is facing mounting medical bills due to the coronavirus, they do not qualify for the coronavirus relief package passed by the federal government.
On May 18, Veva received a video call from the hospital. After accepting the call, she saw what she described as a “miracle.”
After a difficult week of waiting for answers as her husband “fought for his life,” her husband was breathing without a ventilator.
“Los amo mucho,” her husband said, which translates from Spanish to, “I love you very much.”
His doctors were also surprised by his improvement, Veva said. He’s begun physical and speech therapy, but doctors are uncertain when he’ll be able to leave the hospital.
His condition, Veva said, changes each day.
Veva still hasn’t been able to see him in the hospital. When she took her second COVID-19 test, she still tested positive for the virus on May 19 — nearly a month after her initial diagnosis. She is currently fighting off a lung infection, but hasn’t needed to be hospitalized.
Veva said the hospital where her husband is staying has begun to ask her how she plans to pay for his treatment.
“I’ve never been in this situation before,” she said, adding that her family does not have health insurance.
She said her church’s bishop checks in on her frequently to see if her family has enough food on the table, which she declines. She said she turns to God and her faith to help support her through this.
“I want the Hispanic community more than anything to realize how serious it is,” Veva warns. “You can lose a loved one.”