woman stands in room

COVID-19 took a unique toll on undocumented immigrants

The pandemic compounded barriers to accessing medical care—and many continue to delay or forgo treatment.

Imelda, who requested that her last name not be used due to fear of deportation, has struggled to recover since contracting COVID-19. Lack of health insurance and her undocumented immigration status had made it difficult for her to access healthcare. She is a house cleaner and lost most of her clients as the pandemic unfolded and many New Yorkers left the city to live in other parts of the country. Since then, it has been an uphill battle to regain clients. Here, she is photographed in her Queens home on August 27, 2022. She lives in the same room with her two daughters, which made COVID-19 isolation extremely difficult. The other two rooms are rented out to other families and individuals.  

Imelda fled sexual violence at the hands of drug cartels in rural Puebla, about two hours outside of Mexico City, and arrived in New York City in 2013. She had no health insurance, barely spoke English, and as an undocumented immigrant, she avoided situations that required revealing her identity.

So in March 2020, even as the city became the national epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, Imelda, who asked that her surname not be used due to risk of deportation, resisted going to the hospital for her escalating fever and fatigue. “When the symptoms began, I wanted to go,” Imelda says, but her fears outweighed her desire for treatment.

Since arriving in the U.S. Imelda had visited a hospital only once, for the

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