Migrant farmworkers are getting fired for seeking Covid-19 medical treatment
Reyna Alvarez, a 36-year-old mother of three from a village in northwest Mexico, was working at a crawfish processing plant in Louisiana when Covid-19 swept through two dorms that housed migrant farmworkers here on H-2A visas. She left to get treatment at a nearby hospital, and when she recovered and was ready to return to work, she found out she’d been fired for leaving her employer-provided housing, and had been reported to immigration authorities. She’s not the only one. As coronavirus cases explode at farms and food factories, workers like Alvarez are finding that they can’t escape the spread, unless they’re willing to risk deportation, Bloomberg reports. She and others have filed federal whistleblower complaints against their employers.
