Vulnerable to COVID-19 and in Frontline Jobs, Immigrants Are Mostly Shut Out of U.S. Relief 

On the frontlines of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic yet also more disproportionately affected by the virus and with reduced health care access, immigrants in the United States have largely found themselves blocked from federal economic relief. As states and philanthropic groups seek to plug the gap, this article examines conditions and changing policies around immigration and the coronavirus response.

Even in a period of crisis and against our own self interests as a country, we continue to be exclusionary and exploitative:

"The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has estimated that immigrants make up outsize shares both of essential workers in the fight against the pandemic and those in the industries hardest hit by its economic impact. Six million immigrants are working in frontline occupations, such as health care, food production, and transportation; they are overrepresented in certain critical occupations, such as doctors and home health aides, where they face heightened risk of exposure. Another 6 million immigrants work in industries such as food services and domestic household services that have been economically devastated, making up 20 percent of the total workers in those industries."