Undocumented immigrant communities are hard to reach during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York has a sizeable immigrant community as well as a population of people who are undocumented and may not be able to access to the same kind of benefits as the rest of the state’s population.
And not being able to access basic health care needs duing a public health crisis, while a political debate in normal times, becomes as a necessity during a public health crisis.
“There’s a particularly acute need now with more people contracting COVID-19, transmission rates increasing a lot and we still have a situation in this state where hundreds of thousands of people cannot access health care as a result of their immigration status,” said Max Hadler, the director of Health Policy at the New York Immigration Coalition.