Fear of deportation. Fear of facing unpaid bills. Fear of becoming a "social burden" leads to not being able to apply for permanent residence. These are three of the many reasons why undocumented immigrants in the United States do not dare to be hospitalized despite having Covid-19. The lives of millions of people are also seriously affected by the disease.

Many of them became ill and di‌ed while the new corona virus is still spreading in communities. 

Victoria’s ex-husband di‌ed last week after becoming infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The undocumented man, who had kidney disease and diabetes, di‌ed with a fear of going to a medical facility.

“He is very sick but does not want to go to the hospital. After 2 weeks, he could not walk or breathe and my daughter had to take him to a car to the medical facility. He di‌ed 3 weeks later, ”said Victoria.

Before her death, her ex-husband lived with 12 other immigrants in an apartment in New Jersey. They all have Covid-19. Meanwhile, she lives in New York - the largest epidemic region in the United States.

According to AFP , Latinos and the African-American community account for the bulk of the approximately 20,000 deaths in the state. The death rate of these two communities is almost double that of white Americans.

AFP said the Covid-19 epidemic made miserable life for 11 million undocumented Latin American immigrants. Many of them are manual labor workers working in supermarkets, cleaning jobs.

Only about 16% can work from home, according to US Department of Labor data. Many people live in cramped spaces and have underlying medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure. Often, they lack health insurance and receive little education. Some cannot even speak English.

They do not receive unemployment benefits and cannot rely on $ 1,200 in federal funding even though they have paid their taxes in full.

Some states have policies to support undocumented immigrants. California donates US $ 500 per person to 150,000 undocumented immigrants. In New York, 20,000 people were given $ 400 each. However, these numbers are small compared to the needs of 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in the two states.

The US government tightened immigration policy in recent years has made many people feel scared when going to hospitals. However, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents said, with a few exceptions, they did not arrest undocumented immigrants in hospitals.

However, immigrants have a different concern, according to Jae Young Kim of the Bronx Legal Services group, which provides free legal advice to immigrants.

Kim says her customers are worried about the "social burden" rule. They fear it will be difficult to obtain legal permanent residence papers if they use benefits such as food stamps or emergency medical as‌sistance for fear of being considered a burden to society.

The above rules are the exception for people with Covid-19, but many immigrants are unaware or they are still concerned.

The United States now records over 72,000 deaths and more than 1.2 million people infected with Covid-19 (Image: Reuters)

In Coachella, California, Rosa, 26, lost her harvest of cauliflower. Rosa said that if she got sick, the last place she wanted to go was the hospital.

"It’s miserable that you don’t have the money to pay," Rosa said.

When her father was injured and required surgery, he was "stuck" with a $ 40,000 hospital bill. For years after that, he still had to repay the debt.

Carlos Buri, a 46-year-old Ecuadorian from New York, was eventually hospitalized because his wife thought he was going to di‌e. Despite a positive result with Covid-19 with a series of symptoms, he was also denied admission and told to go home and quarantine himself, his wife Blanca Velez said.

Velez and his 10-year-old son also later became infected with the corona virus. While trying to recover, the Buri family continued to receive "shock" when an ambulance bill sent him to the hospital and sent home. Buri’s emergency trip is worth $ 1,330 and both spouses cannot pay because they both lost their jobs.

Velez said the couple now feared the prospect of returning to the hospital for fear of becoming a "social burden" when they had to apply for Medicaid medical as‌sistance.

Near Brooklyn, Guadalupe Galicia, 40, a Mexican-born woman suspected that she was infected, but she was scared if she was hospitalized.

Galicia could not sell tamale sandwiches because of the epidemic in the past two months and had to teach four children to study at home because the school was closed. She ran out of money to pay the rent and sometimes the family dinner was only bean.