Featuring Angelica Salas, longtime executive director of Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA) which she transformed into a mass membership immigrant led-organization that empowers immigrants to win local, state, and national policies, advancing their human, civil and labor rights.
Why are immigrant workers more vulnerable than other workers during this pandemic? When they do get sick, what options do immigrants without documentation have when it comes to care? What public health policies are absolutely critical during a pandemic? Angelica Salas, executive director of CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights) and host Brenda Gazzar discuss the impact that exclusion from the social safety net has had on immigrants whose work is considered essential to the economy.
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Essential Yet Undocumented?
—– TRANSCRIPT —–
Opening MUSIC – “Talk Back” 10 seconds, fade down
Welcome to Code WACK!, your podcast on America’s broken healthcare system and how Medicare for All could help. I’m your host Brenda Gazzar. Today we’ll talk about how Latinx immigrants are faring amid the coronavirus pandemic.
(Stinger music – 5-seconds)
Angelica Salas is the longtime executive director of CHIRLA, which she transformed into a mass membership immigrant led-organization that empowers immigrants to win local, state, and national policies, advancing their human, civil and labor rights.
Welcome to Code WACK!, Angelica.
Salas: Thank you for having me.
Q: So how would you say Latinx communities here in SoCal have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic?
Salas: Well, it’s, it’s devastating. So, I had the unfortunate experience to both have family members who are suffering from coronavirus, who have been infected, some who have been able to survive it. But then also in our membership at CHIRLA we have seen members who have passed away because of coronavirus. These are immigrant workers, Latinos, Latinas, who are working because there is no safety net for them. And so their survival is work and that means that they put themselves in a very vulnerable and very dangerous situation. And so what has happened is in California, the overwhelming number of infections are of Latinos, the overwhelming number of deaths are of Latinos. Many of them are immigrants working in agriculture, working as grocery workers, working as restaurant workers as they’re opening and really as now what is deemed essential workers, basically the people who work in order for us to be able to survive this pandemic. Unfortunately, these folks are not surviving it.
We also run an immigrant assistance hotline so we receive calls from individuals who are requesting assistance, many of them are requesting financial assistance because they can’t continue to work because they are themselves infected, or they have to take care of a loved one who is infected as well or an entire family that has been infected.
Q: Got it. So what can be done to alleviate these challenges to Latinx immigrants?
Salas: Well, first and foremost, I think during this moment there should be no distinction in terms of immigration status. There really should not be a distinction as to who gets care, or who gets this access to a safety net, who’s, you know, able to stay home to take care of their health and who’s not. Just all these distinctions make no sense during a global pandemic. So, we believe that there should be full immigrant inclusion in all aspects of care, including health care. And so many of the individuals who are connecting with us have never had health care or access to health care, and in many instances, they’re trying to take care of the symptoms of coronavirus through home remedies and through just care at home. Many times they get so sick that then they have to go to the emergency room and so there’s a difference between being infected, being able to connect with a healthcare provider, a doctor, so that that doctor can monitor your progress and can tell you when is it time you can come in, when is it time to seek medical assistance at a hospital, can you actually stay home and take care of this and move forward. Many people that I’ve been talking to were trying to self medicate until it was too late. So from our perspective just the idea that immigrants are left out of healthcare has to change. It just has to change.
And the other thing is that many Latinos don’t have access to health care through their employer. I think it’s something below…The Urban Institute did a report on this and my understanding it’s about 36% to 33% of Latinos actually have access to health care through an employer. The rest don’t and so that means that they have to pay out of pocket for their own health care. So if you’re working low wage jobs, paying for health care becomes inaccessible. And then if you’re undocumented, you don’t even have access to what is now deemed Obamacare because you’re left out of the exchange so that you could have access to just lower premiums.
Here in the state of California, we’ve pushed year after year for health care for all. We’ve been successful in getting the undocumented children (age) zero to 19 to be fully covered. A couple years ago, we were also able to get 19 to 26-year-olds covered but the rest of the undocumented community just doesn’t have access to health care. So, that’s what has to change. And then I also think that there has to be a recognition that undocumented immigrants are part of our community and that nobody can be left out during an emergency like this, but really nobody should be left out of what is a human right, which is health care.
Q: Thank you, Angelica.
Find more Code WACK! episodes at ProgressiveVoices.com and on the PV app. You can also listen to Code WACK! at heal-ca.org. This podcast is powered by HEAL California, uplifting the voices of those fighting for healthcare reform around the country. I’m Brenda Gazzar.
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