2021-Annual-Report-FINAL-Single-Pages - Flipbook - Page 18
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Omar Gutierrez
Program Coordinator,
Tennessee Immigrant &
Refugee Rights Coalition
PAGE 1 6
U N IT E D WA Y OF G R EATER NAS HV ILLE
With the pandemic, a lot
of people are out of work—
whether they’re citizens or
not. A lot of our clients are
domestic workers and a lot
of them are undocumented,
so they don’t have any other
resources and they can’t apply
for unemployment. Just finding
resources and knowing where
to look can be difficult for
someone who doesn’t speak
the language or who’s a newer
arrival. And with the pandemic,
it’s even more difficult. One
story that really stuck out was
a man and his mother who
recently came to the U.S. They
applied for asylum and while
they were waiting for their
application to go through, his
mother passed away from
COVID-19. He said, ‘Here we
are … we escaped violence
from our country and my mom
passes away of COVID once we
got here.’ ”
