The crisis began when they had to move to another house. His eldest son was the only one working, and this money was not enough for all the family expenses. Ella, a 53-year-old Mexican woman who has lived in the United States for 25 years, tried to find formal work, but without papers, the options were few. The context hasn’t helped either: It’s becoming increasingly difficult for immigrants to find stable work, and fear of ICE hangs over the country like a fog. She also has two children with autism who need constant treatment.
So, with the help of her sister and members of her church in Dallas, Texas, she started making tamales. The green ones are chicken and the red ones are pork. “They sell fast,” he explains. “Here people are very nostalgic for tamales. Mexicans love them very much, but so do almost all Latinos, even gringos.”
The process is not easy. You have to spend at least a whole day buying the ingredients: dough, tomatoes, tomatoes, beef and pork. “You have to make good choices, well priced but very good quality, because you can’t risk someone getting sick from your food. Especially since you don’t have a permit, it’s something homemade,” says the woman, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear she might end up detained and deported.
Then you have to prepare the sauces, cook the meat for five hours, prepare the chili peppers, grind them, strain them, knead them, fill each tamale, roll them carefully, and arrange them in large steamers. Work starts at three in the morning and ends at night. The whole family participates: sister, godfather, nephews. “It’s very hard,” Al-Muhajir says. “You end up dying.”
The church gave them permission to put a table in the space between the exit and the parking lot. There, every Sunday after Mass, the family sells dozens of them for $20. “God’s tamales,” the children declare. In their two largest sales to date, they sold 1,200 tamales one day and 900 the next.
Thanks to Tamales, the mother was able to pay rent as well as treatment for her children, aged 12 to 23, who have autism. He will also eventually use the same funds to apply for legal residency through his children, who were born in the United States and are citizens.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, approximately 10 million undocumented people were part of the US workforce in 2023. Preliminary data from the same report indicates continued growth in this number in 2024. However, they indicate a decline in 2025. Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy has, on the one hand, caused many employers to avoid hiring undocumented people, and on the other hand, immigrants themselves are increasingly afraid of Departure. To search for work. For millions of undocumented people, finding formal work has become practically impossible.
“A peso is a peso”
After weeks without finding work, Manuel saw an ad on Facebook: “I’m looking for work Drivers To deliver Shein’s packages in Austin.” They offered $1.75 per delivery. “Except for gas, I have very little left. But since I didn’t have any, I said: ‘Well, a peso is a peso.'” He called and they asked him for his information. He explained: “I don’t have a (driving) license. They replied: “It doesn’t matter.”
Manuel Cuban arrived in the Texas capital a little over a year ago across the border Parole Humanity. He also requested that his real name be concealed, like all people interviewed for this report. In the first month, I already obtained a license and work permit. However, they lost it when President Trump revoked the benefits enjoyed by those who came that way.
From then on his life was full of chaos and he had to live on invention. He mows gardens, walks dogs, does whatever. He applied for restaurant jobs, but they never called him back. “I’m worse here than I was in Cuba,” he says. However, he does not want to return. He hopes that when he can sort out his situation, things will get better for him.
At 6 a.m. he was in a warehouse, ready to deliver packages. He was assigned 60 packages to deliver that day, two hours away. “You have until ten at night,” they warned him. When he checked the route, he realized that he had received more than a hundred packages. “Deadly disruption. Disaster,” he recalls.
He started delivering. But there were fake addresses, houses without numbers, and condominiums where I would waste half an hour looking for a place to leave the shipment. After 54 deliveries are made, contact the manager. “I don’t have time.” He gave what he could and gave away the rest. She told him: “You have to wait 21 days until you get your salary.”
He says: In the end, they did not pay him any wages. “These types of companies have no control, no one to show their face,” says Manuel. “And when you go without papers, you don’t even have the right to demand anything.”
Donate plasma
In Oakland, California, Juliana, a 25-year-old Mexican woman, couldn’t find stable work, so a friend took her to a plasma donation center. “The first time I was so nervous because I was afraid I would faint,” she recalls.
They took her to a room to check her blood pressure, then to a waiting room with reclining chairs. A nurse looked for his vein, but couldn’t find it, so she had him press on a rubber ball while she tied a rubber band to his forearm. When they finally inserted the needle, Juliana began to shake with fear. They calmed her down and tried again. The whole process took an hour. They paid him $250 cash. Juliana went on to donate once a month for three months.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates plasma donation, does not prevent unregistered people from doing so. It only requires that the centers verify the identity and address of the donor. There are centers that also require a Social Security number, although this depends on each center’s internal policies.
Camila also thinks this is a good option because she has started seeing ads of this type on social media. The 21-year-old Venezuelan quit her job after receiving a deportation order. Until then she was a waitress in a restaurant. However, from day to day, for fear of being found by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she was left without income and with outstanding bills. “I started seeing ads for plasma donation, and I heard some Latinos in my environment talking about it, and I started to see it as making money quickly and safely in quotes,” he says. “But I worry about the physical and emotional impact this could have.”
Camila made an appointment at the clinic, but didn’t go. It has not yet been decided. He lives on his few savings and eats thanks to food banks. She says she feels closer and closer to deciding to donate, even though she’s having difficulty doing so: “I wouldn’t donate altruistically, I’m practically forced to. No one should be forced to do something like this out of necessity.”