Undocumented Migrants and COVID-19 in Ontario

This article in CBC News describes how Ontario's undocumented migrants are slipping through the provinces COVID-19 net. Several foreign farm labourers do not have the proper permits to work in Canada and are now facing the fear that getting tested for COVID-19 may get them deported. An outbreak in Southwestern Ontario has resulted in over 1,000 migrant farm workers getting sick and killed 3 of them.

"I think is it's common knowledge that most of the workers that are hired through a temp work agency are undocumented," says Santiago Escobar, a national representative with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and a co-ordinator of the Agricultural Workers Alliance. ​Escobar. "And due to their precarious status, unscrupulous employers and temporary work agencies are taking advantage of these workers."