It’s just nuts to run ‘essential workers’ out of the country during a pandemic

The cruelty of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies has been in plain view for years. The shortsightedness of those plans could do a lot of damage to America amid a pandemic.

To fight the coronavirus, we need a reliable workforce in hospitals as well as in the humblest jobs, such as farm work.

It’s alarming then that in the coming months America could lose about 29,000 doctors, nurses, nursing assistants and other frontline health care professionals because of their immigration status.

And, at a time when migrant farmworkers are putting their health at risk by working and living in dense conditions on farms, the administration wants to lower their wages.

Let’s look at doctors and other health care professionals. In the current spring term, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the Trump administration can end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program known as DACA that shields from deportation undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children.

DACA, put in place by President Barack Obama, has opened up career paths previously denied to undocumented immigrants. At its peak, some 800,000 people had DACA status. That number has dipped to about 650,000 as Trump continues his fight to abolish the program.

Tens of thousands of DACA recipients have become doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers. They strengthen their communities and the U.S. economy.

Conservatives like to point out that even if Trump wins the Supreme Court case, he won’t rush to deport DACA recipients.

But they’re overlooking a crucial point: DACA also allows these folks to work legally. Hospitals, schools, law firms and tech companies hired them based on this. If DACA expires, so does work authorization. They will lose their jobs.

That would leave professionals such as emergency room doctor Manuel Bernal jobless. Bernal is a resident at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. As a frontline worker against the coronavirus, he hasn’t had time to dwell on his shaky immigration status.

“Taking care of sick individuals, I’m focusing on that,” he told me by phone.

But the irony of his trying to save Americans fighting against a deadly virus while conservatives try to run him out of the country isn’t lost on him.

“I’m happily serving my country and taking care of sick individuals who need my help,” he said. “The administration at the federal level doesn’t have my back.”

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Trump also has wanted to expel foreigners from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Sudan, Haiti, Honduras and Nepal who have Temporary Protection Status, known as TPS. They have been allowed to stay in the U.S. since their countries were deemed unsafe because of wars or the toll of disasters.

According to Sen. Dick Durbin, 11,600 TPS recipients work in health care. And more than 200,000 DACA recipients and 130,000 TPS recipients, he wrote in a letter to Trump, work in jobs that the Department of Homeland Security considers “essential critical infrastructure workforce.”

For good reason, Durbin and other Democratic senators are urging the Trump administration to automatically extend work authorizations for DACA and TPS recipients, given that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has suspended services because of the coronavirus.

The Trump administration considers farmworkers “essential workers” during the pandemic. They pick or process the fruits, vegetables, meats and poultry that we need. They do the jobs Americans don’t line up to do.

That’s why the Department of Homeland Security has eased some visa restrictions to make it easier for farmers to hire migrant workers right now.

“This Administration has determined that continued agricultural employment, currently threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic, is vital to maintaining and securing the country’s critical food supply chain,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf said in a statement.

Yet, the White House wants to reduce wages for foreign guest workers to help U.S. farmers in these uncertain times, National Public Radio reported this week.

Here’s a tip: Help farmers by subsidizing worker pay. Make sure they’re working in safe conditions and have access to medical care, including coronavirus testing.

Farmworkers do back-breaking work to put food on our tables. Now, because of the coronavirus, they’re putting their lives on the line, too. They should be earning more, not less.

“I don’t understand the government’s vision,” Alexandra Sossa, executive director of the Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project of Illinois, told me. “To make America stronger, they don’t want DACA to be around and they want to lower wages.”

It makes no sense to run essential people out of America.

Marlen Garcia is a member of the Sun-Times Editorial Board.

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