ABSTRACT
Undocumented immigrants in the United States comprise more than 10.4 million people, including 7 million workers, who originate from all over the world. While they are essential to the economy and sociocultural fabric of the United States, undocumented immigrants are targets of incessant exclusion and exploitation. In the current essay, a fact-based and reflective overview of the conditions that marginalize undocumented immigrants prior to the COVID-19 pandemic is provided, including racist and xenophobic anti-immigrant policy, a bloated “deportation machine,” and the systemic criminalizing and stigmatizing of undocumented status. This is followed by a brief overview of how undocumented workers have fared during the pandemic, including being forced to become exposed to the COVID-19 virus due to essential and precarious work and being consistently excluded from relief programs during the pandemic. Finally, we end with suggestions for a way forward to reform immigration policy and provide a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants.
