LIVING IN FEAR
Many unauthorized immigrants remain hesitant about getting immunized, but churches are having an impact
Many immigrants living here illegally are hesitant about getting vaccinated, but churches are helping.
Aracely Garza says she feels like she’s done her part to keep her community safe. The 47-year-old caregiver was initially hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccination because of the side effects she’d read about, but opted to get inoculated earlier this year.
Still, she worries that many others she knows remain skeptical — including those living here without documentation, and who have forgone vaccines or care as the pandemic ravaged their communities.
“They’re afraid that they’re going to get caught,” she said. “Sometimes they can’t breathe but they just decide to stay home.”
Garza, who became a U.S. citizen decades ago, is not alone in her worry.
Large swaths of the area’s population living here illegally remain hesitant or fearful of receiving COVID-19 vaccinations, an ongoing trend that advocates worry will further endanger communities already hard-hit by the pandemic.
“It’s very widespread,” said Debbie Ortiz, head of Houston’s chapter of the Association for the Ad
vancement of Mexican Americans. “We have made inroads, but we’re a long way off from where we need to be.”
Many of the hurdles and inequities that existed 14 months ago still loom over the estimated half-million people who live in the Houston region without documentation. Among them: language barriers, confusion over paperwork requirements and fear of immigration enforcement.
Even those who are here legally may be skeptical of being vaccinated because of fears that law enforcement will use it to crack down on friends or family members who are undocumented, Ortiz said.
“They have this fear that they’re going to get found out and their family members are going to be taken away,” she said.
Many are also without cars or internet, or are too busy juggling jobs and care for their families to get to a vaccination hub, she said.
Gilma, who did not want her last name used because of her citizenship status, thanked God after she was finally able to be vaccinated earlier this month.
The 83-year-old said her daughter was sick for 40 days with COVID last year, and she was terrified of contracting it herself.
She doesn’t have a car, but was able to walk five minutes to the Consulate of El Salvador, one of the temporary vaccine hubs aimed at inoculating Houston’s hard-toreach communities.
County health officials have made low-income and minority communities a focal point of their broader COVID response. Vaccination efforts in those communities have increased as more Houstonians have been fully vaccinated, and as demand for doses decreases across the state.
“We’ve been trying to get to the point where we have the resources to match the demand and we’re finally there,” said Sam Bissett, communication specialist for Harris County Public Health.
Cecilia Nunez, 32, says more could be done to assuage fears. She said she contracted COVID twice last year, and was extremely ill both times.
She works as an assistant for an OBGYN and is a U.S. citizen, but she was still skeptical of vaccines because of what she felt were unknowns early on.
“You heard all these stories, so you do get kind of fearful,” she said.
She said she empathizes with the choices faced by those who do not yet have citizenship.
Local faith leaders have also been proactive in their advocacy for vaccinations. A recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute found religious messaging has a significant effect on vaccine skeptics.
The same study found 25 percent of Hispanic Protestants were vaccine hesitant, and 15 percent do not plan to vaccinate themselves at all.
The problem is not unique to evangelical congregations.
“It’s common that there’s some kind of fear or concern,” said the Rev. Albert Zanatta of Assumption Catholic Church. “Even though we tell them it’s safe, some of them don’t believe that.”
Maria Guerrero considers herself among that group. The 41-year-old undocumented housewife remains unvaccinated, fearing the side effects some have had after being inoculated.
This week, she said, she decided she is open to being vaccinated in the near future, citing her conversations with those at AAMA as a key reason.