Donating blood or selling tamales: How undocumented immigrants survive when nobody wants to hire them

The crisis began when they had to move. Her eldest son was the only one working… and his earnings weren’t enough to cover all of the family’s expenses.

This 53-year-old Mexican woman — who has lived in the United States for 25 years — went ahead and tried to find formal employment. However, without papers, she had limited options. The context didn’t help, either: it’s increasingly difficult for immigrants to find stable work. The fear of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hangs over the country like a fog.

This mother also has two children with autism, who require ongoing therapy. So, with the help of her sister and members of her church in Dallas, Texas, she started making tamales. Green ones with chicken, red ones with pork. “They sell quickly,” she tells EL PAÍS. “People here are very nostalgic for tamales. Mexicans love them, but so do almost all Latinos. Even Americans.”

The process isn’t easy. She has to spend at least a whole day buying ingredients: tomatoes, beef, pork and masa (corn flour). “You have to choose [everything] carefully, at good prices… but [the ingredients have to be of] very good quality, because you can’t risk someone getting sick from your food. Especially since you don’t have a permit; it’s all homemade,” the woman explains. She prefers not to be identified, for fear of being arrested and deported.

After the shopping, the sauce is made, the meat is cooked for five hours, the chili is prepared — ground and strained — and the dough is kneaded. Each tamale is filled and carefully wrapped in corn husks. And, finally, they’re placed in large steamers.

The work begins at 3 a.m. and ends at night. The whole family participates: her sister, her godfather, her nephews. “It’s very hard work. You end up exhausted,” the migrant woman sighs.

The church gave them permission to set up a table in the space between the exit and the parking lot. There, every Sunday after Mass, the family sells tamales for $20 a dozen. “God’s tamales,” the children call out. In their two biggest sales so far, they made 1,200 tamales one day and 900 the next.

With the sale of her tamales, this mother has been able to make rent, while also paying for the ABA therapy that her two younger children — who are 12 and 13 — require. She will also eventually use this income to apply for legal residency through her children, who were born in the United States and are citizens.

According to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center, nearly 10 million undocumented immigrants were part of the U.S. workforce in 2023. Preliminary data from the same report indicates that this number grew even larger in 2024. However, the study projects a decrease in this population in 2025. Donald Trump’s policy of mass deportations has led, on the one hand, to many employers becoming wary of hiring undocumented individuals. And, on the other, migrants have become increasingly afraid to look for work.

For millions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, finding formal employment has become virtually impossible.

“A peso is a peso”

After weeks of being unemployed, Manuel saw an ad on Facebook: “Looking for a driver to deliver Shein packages in Austin.” They offered $1.75 per delivery. “After gas, I was left with very little. But since I had nothing, I thought, well, a peso is a peso.”

He called. They asked for his information. “I don’t have a driver’s license,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter,” they replied.

Manuel is Cuban and arrived in the Texas capital a little over a year ago, through humanitarian parole. He also asked EL PAÍS that he remain anonymous (as did everyone else who was interviewed for this report). He explains that, in his first month in the U.S., he had a license and a work permit. However, he lost them when Trump eliminated the benefits for those who arrived through the aforementioned program.

Since then, his life has been chaotic; he’s had to make ends meet by doing odd jobs. He mows lawns, walks dogs… he does whatever he can. He’s applied for jobs at restaurants, but they never call him back. “I’m worse off here than in Cuba,” Manuel laments. However, he doesn’t want to go back to the island. He’s hopeful that things will improve once he regularizes his immigration status.

At 6 a.m., he was at a warehouse, ready to make deliveries. He was assigned 60 packages to deliver that day, at destinations located about two hours away. “You have until 10 p.m.,” he was warned. When he checked the route, he realized he’d been given more than 100 packages. “A total mess. A disaster,” he recalls.

He started making deliveries. But there were fake addresses, houses without numbers, condominiums where he wasted half an hour looking for a place to leave a package. After making 54 deliveries, he called his manager. “I don’t have enough time.” He delivered what he could and returned the rest to the warehouse. She told him: “You have to wait 21 days until you get paid.”

In the end, Manuel sighs, he was never paid. “That kind of business has no oversight; no one takes responsibility,” he points out. “And, when you’re undocumented, you don’t even have the right to complain.”

Donating 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 went], I was very 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 a vein, but couldn’t find one. She had Juliana squeeze a rubber ball, while tying a band around her forearm. When the nurse finally inserted the needle, Juliana began to tremble with fear. The staff calmed her down and tried again. The whole process took an hour. She was paid $250 in cash. Juliana then proceeded to donate plasma once a month for three months.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates plasma donations, doesn’t prohibit undocumented immigrants from donating. It only requires centers to verify the donor’s identity and address. Some centers also request a Social Security number, although this depends on each location’s internal policies.

Camila — who recently started seeing ads to donate on social media — also thinks that it’s a good option to make some money. The 21-year-old Venezuelan quit her job after receiving a deportation order. Until then, she had been a waitress at a restaurant. However, overnight, fearing that ICE would find her, she was left without income and with unpaid bills. “I started seeing ads about donating plasma [and] I heard some Latinos around me talking about it. And I started considering it as a way to make money ‘quickly and safely,’” she says, while making finger quotes. “But I’m worried about the physical and emotional impact it could have on me.”

Camila made an appointment at a clinic, but she didn’t go. She hasn’t made a decision yet. She’s living off her meager savings and relying on food banks for meals. She says that she feels increasingly close to deciding to donate plasma, though she struggles with the idea.

“I wouldn’t be donating altruistically,” she reflects. “I’m practically forced to. No one should be forced to do something like this out of necessity.”

Translated by Avik Jain Chatlani

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