The coronavirus outbreak has gripped headlines for weeks, as economies around the world grapple with how to beat it. The U.S. government has responded to the one-two punch of a health crisis and economic meltdown with accelerated drug trials and trillions of dollars in economic stimulus for businesses and Americans alike.
One segment of the population that falls into a gray area, however, is immigrants.
According to Pew Research, roughly 8 million of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants participate in the U.S. workforce. It’s not unusual for undocumented immigrants to hold down jobs that are temporary in nature, leaving them to live paycheck to paycheck in the interim.
Incidentally, this wasn’t always the case.
At the start of the 20th century, immigrants often held occupations on par with native-born Americans—compared to now when…
