Immigrants face vaccine challenges
Language barriers and misinformation hinder inoculation among vulnerable groups.
MECCA, Calif. — Migrant workers lined up by the hundreds during a break from picking produce this week on a Southern California grape farm to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
The farmworkers who got their shots are among the vulnerable immigrants in the United States — particularly the 11 million who are in the country illegally — who advocacy groups say may be some of the most difficult people to reach during the largest vaccination campaign in American history.
Some immigrants who are in the country illegally fear that information taken during vaccinations could be turned over to authorities, so they may avoid getting the shots. Those who speak little or no English may find it difficult to gain access to the vaccines. Some are hesitant about receiving a newly approved shot — and language barriers may make it harder to get messages countering misinformation to them.
While these challenges exist for many vulnerable groups, they are particularly worrying for Latino immigrants, who make up a large portion of the workforce in industries where they have a significant risk of exposure to the coronavirus.
“There is anxiety, and it’s real ... but so is the fear of dying of COVID-19,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
To tackle these challenges, groups that advocate on behalf of Latino immigrants are heading into farm fields to bring vaccines and information to migrant laborers. At the same time, they are attempting to counter misinformation via messaging in Spanish and other languages.
In California’s sprawling Riverside County, home to a $1.3-billion agriculture industry, the healthcare nonprofit that brought vaccines to the grape farm recently took tablet computers into the fields to register workers for vaccine appointments, according to Conrado Bárzaga, chief executive of Desert Healthcare District and Foundation.
The organization shares information about the coronavirus and how to get tested for it on WhatsApp in Spanish and in Purépecha, an Indigenous language from western Mexico spoken by some farmworkers in California.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network has used a Spanish-language radio show on social media to share information throughout the pandemic. Now, the show’s hosts, many of them migrants and lowincome workers themselves, plan to spend airtime debunking myths about the COVID-19 vaccine to their 300,000 weekly listeners, Alvarado said.
He believes countering misinformation on social media is key to overcoming most hesitancy about the vaccine — such as knocking down false claims that the vaccine would insert a microchip into those who receive it.
Daniel Cortés, a 58-yearold Mexican immigrant who lives in New York, is among those who have doubts. He’s authorized to live in the U.S., so fears of deportation are not the issue. He said he would not take the vaccine because he is healthy and fears a bad reaction.
The vaccines being administered in the U.S. showed no signs of serious side effects in trials involving tens of thousands of participants, and few unexpected adverse reactions have been reported in the early days of distribution.
“I maintain social distancing, wash my hands, change my clothes when I get home,” Cortés said, explaining that he thinks those precautions are sufficient. “I haven’t been sick in eight years, and hopefully it will stay that way.”
President Biden’s $1.9trillion American Rescue Plan includes programs to set up community vaccination centers across the U.S. and the use of mobile clinics to access hard-to-reach communities. The goal is to make the vaccine free to all U.S. residents, regardless of their immigration status.
But some advocacy groups say the legacy of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies will make it especially tough to reach some immigrants.
Maria Rodriguez, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition in Miami, said fears persist about the former administration’s public charge rule, which sought to deny green cards to immigrants who receive food stamps or other public benefits.
While the rule, which is being challenged in courts, never restricted access to testing or to vaccinations for communicable diseases, “it doesn’t matter, the perception still exists,” Rodriguez said.
Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts recently came under criticism when he said workers with legal status would be prioritized in the state’s vaccine rollout over those without legal status, after being asked about the plan to protect meatpacking facilities, which historically have relied on foreign-born labor.
A day later, the GOP governor appeared to walk back his statement, saying through a spokesman that “proof of citizenship is not required for vaccination,” according to a report in the Omaha World-Herald.
Blanca Flores, a community organizer at Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, an alliance of female farmworkers, said many of the women she works with in rural Homestead, Fla., believe that any personal information they provide in order to receive a vaccine could somehow be used against them later. They also worry about missing a few days’ work, and possibly getting fired, if they suffer adverse side effects from the vaccine.
“They would like to wait a month or two to see what happens and decide later,” said Flores, a Colombianborn immigrant with legal residency.
But others are eager — perhaps reflecting the fact that Latino immigrant communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus.
In New York, Francisco Flores, a Mexican immigrant who lost a brother, brother-in-law and sister-inlaw to COVID-19, said he would not hesitate to take the shot.
Flores, who is 54 and has lived in the U.S. without authorization for more than 20 years, plans to sign up the moment he can.
“The government already has my data. I have been here for a long time. I have a driver’s license, bank accounts. I have nothing to fear,” said Flores, who works for a company that constructs golf courses. “And after what we went through with COVID, I would not hesitate to take the vaccine.”
‘There is anxiety, and it’s real ... but so is the fear of dying of COVID-19.’ — Pablo Alvarado, National Day Laborer Organizing Network