We depend on essential workers. Many are on DACA?and face a precarious future.

But the Trump Administration has vowed to terminate the program, despite setbacks at the U.S. Supreme Court.The most common metaphor used to describe the undocumented is that they are “living in the shadows.” But, in fact, undocumented people can be found working in plain sight in nearly every corner of American society. During the pandemic, many have been doing labor officially deemed essential—at hospitals, assisted-living facilities, grocery stores, and other places.“I think the undocumented community has continually proven our worth,” said Veronica Velasquez, 27, a Filipina physical therapist who works with COVID-19 patients at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles. We deserve more.”As undocumented immigrants like Villagómez help to protect us from COVID-19, they see their own communities being ravaged by it.Jesica Garcia Garcia, 22, works at grocery store in Marina del Rey, California, where she shops for customers so they can avoid entering the building. “But the more we relied on our essential workforce in grocery stores and restaurants, it started hitting people who are working minimum-wage jobs and who don't have access to health care.”Montiel was raised in Santa Ana, as the undocumented immigrant daughter of two undocumented Mexican immigrants. She’s a 33-year-old Harvard grad with a Ph.D. who has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help meet the COVID-19 crisis—and she’s also a DACA recipient and a leader in California’s increasingly assertive undocumented community.When Montiel was growing up, her parents worked in restaurants; to make ends meet they lived with Montiel’s aunts, uncles, and cousins. Such crowded conditions remain common in the most impoverished immigrant communities.Gloria Itzel Montiel, in the yellow dress, organized a trip for fellow DACA recipients to the U.S.-Mexico border in San Ysidro, California. Montiel, a public health strategist, worked to obtain funding for Latino families impacted by COVID-19.“If one person gets infected in a house of 21 people, there’s a very high chance that the rest of the household would be affected,” Montiel said.