https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/americas-immigration-system-is-a-covid-superspreader/

In her teens, Leticia Sierra realized that the future she had envisioned was out of reach. Sierra, who lived in San Diego, fled her native Mexico after suffering multiple episodes of sexual abuse before her kindergarten year. But since Sierra was an undocumented immigrant, she was not eligible for military service, which she’d need to afford nursing school. “I was blocked from pursuing my dreams,” she says. Two decades later, Sierra’s future was inverted once again. After being pulled over because her then-boyfriend was on the phone while driving—and after being searched without a warrant—the police found several tablets of Vicodin in Sierra’s purse (a friend had given them to her for back pain). Within hours, Sierra was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported to Tijuana.

Desperate “to come home and be with my [two-year-old] son again,” Sierra found her way back to San Diego. There, she—like many undocumented migrants—lived a quiet life one block off Main Street, cleaning homes with her mother and paying her taxes for over a decade.