Latinos’ risk of getting COVID doubles in states with meat processing plant outbreaks
The ashes of Hugo Dominguez arrived at his childhood home in Veracruz, Mexico, three weeks after he died from COVID-19 in a Dallas hospital.
“He’d always talk about us going back to his home and retiring,” said his common-law wife, Blanca Parra, who has two children with Dominguez. “I knew that’s where he wanted to be, with his parents, who didn’t get to say goodbye.”
Dominguez, 36, had been living in the country illegally for 16 years. For the past five years he’d worked at Quality Sausage Co., a meat processing plant in west Dallas, where at least three workers, including Dominguez, have died of COVID-19.
Immigrants and refugees are being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus, especially in states where meat processing plants have reported outbreaks, according to a recent study. As of June 9, at least 92 meatpacking plant workers have died in the U.S. Activists say up to 80% of workers at these plants are undocumented.
Immigrant fatalities
Nearly 1,200 Mexican nationals have died from COVID-19 in the United States., according to data obtained by the Star-Telegram from Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Office. New York leads in fatalities with 706, followed by Illinois with 112 and California with 120.
In Texas, 17 deaths were reported to officials at Mexican consulate offices as of June 2. At least 10 were in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Dominguez, and the ashes of four other Mexican nationals who died of COVID-19 in the area, have been repatriated back to their loved ones in Mexico with the help of the consulates.
Parra said the county health department didn’t give the family a choice. It incinerated the body because of COVID-19.
“Our funeral service was just us receiving his ashes from the morgue,” Parra said. “But it was OK, our main concern was getting him back home.”
Parra sued Quality Sausage Co. and its affiliates, including a temporary employment agency accused of providing undocumented workers with stolen names and Social Security numbers.
In the wrongful death lawsuit, filed with a Dallas County district court, Parra accuses Quality Sausage of ignoring early signs of a COVID-19 outbreak inside the plant. She said Dominguez was asked to go to work or face being fired even though he told his employer he was experiencing coronavirus related symptoms.
“A man with a strong work ethic and deep commitment to his children and family, he continued to work till the day he just couldn’t go on,” reads the lawsuit. “A few days later he was gone; pronounced dead at Parkland, the same hospital where JFK, the modern symbol of the American dream had died.”
Latinos at higher risk
Latinos are twice as likely or more to be among COVID-19 cases than in the overall population in states that have seen virus outbreaks in meatpacking operations, an industry where Latinos are disproportionately part of the workforce, according to Rogelio Sáenz, professor of demography at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Sáenz, who wrote recently about the issue on the Latino Decisions blog, analyzed data from the 44 states that report COVID-19 infection cases and/or deaths for Latinos. He found that in 29 of the 44 states, Latinos are overwhelmingly overrepresented among people infected with the virus.
Of these 29 states, 21 have seen outbreaks in meatpacking plants.
As of June 9, at least 283 meatpacking and food processing plants had confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to data collected by the Food and Environment Reporting Network, an independent non-profit investigative news organization based in New York City.
At least 24,715 meatpacking workers have tested positive for COVID-19, and 92 meatpacking workers have died, according to the network.
About 80% of the workforce is comprised of undocumented workers or refugees, according the League of United Latin American Citizens.
LULAC, the nation’s largest and oldest Latino civil rights organization, has been calling for stronger COVID-19 protections for meatpacking workers since late March.
“These workers need our help,” said Joe Henry, political director for the organization’s Iowa chapter. “Our community is hurting, the immigrant community is hurting every day, every minute that these workers are going into these plants. These are literally death marches.”
