New York: Advocates call for some kind of relief for immigrant workers

Activists and immigrant rights advocates in New York are asking the government for benefits for immigrant workers amid the global health crisis. They state that it has been more than a year since the arrival of the pandemic and the Trump administration did not offer alternatives for thousands of essential workers, who are undocumented.

For instance, several members of the New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE) are calling on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to create a relief program for essential foreign workers in times of crisis.

They also hope that, under the new administration (Biden-Harris), immigrant populations will be able to access medical services and other social benefits amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

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The Trump administration did not offer assistance to immigrant communities

The health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic also brought a global economic crisis unprecedented in the recent history of mankind.

This is mainly because:

• COVID-19 is a highly contagious virus through human contact. Therefore, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended social distancing as the main preventive measure to avoid the massive spread of the virus.
• Many important sectors such as tourism, gastronomy and entertainment (theaters, cinemas, bars, inter alia) could not offer their services to the public for a considerable period of time and are gradually resuming their activities, but implementing the mandatory preventive measures, which also reduces the audience.
• Most of the world’s governments decided to use quarantine as their main strategy to lessen the impact of the pandemic, which substantially increased the unemployment rate.

Speaking specifically about the US, former President Trump decided to issue stimulus checks for families affected by the sanitary emergency, who lost their jobs and had no other source of income to survive and protect their beloved ones.

However, due to Trump’s stance when it comes to immigration, his administration tried to narrow alternatives available to immigrant communities during the Coronavirus pandemic, mainly those undocumented.

Thus, during the first round of stimulus checks, the Trump administration stated that:

• American citizens married to an undocumented immigrant, filing taxes jointly, should not receive stimulus check.
• Undocumented immigrants should not receive stimulus check, regardless of whether they pay mandatory annual taxes or not.
• Children of mixed families, which refers to an American and an undocumented parent or both undocumented, should not receive stimulus checks.
• Undocumented immigrants responsible for US-born minors, and therefore American citizens, should not apply for stimulus checks.

However, each state has the power to decide how to distribute government resources among local residents, including immigrant communities. On top of that, during subsequent rounds of stimulus checks, some rules changed and mixed families were included in the Trump administration’s relief package.

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