NEW YORK – Sotero Cirilo sleeps in a small blue tent under a train track bridge in Elmhurst, Queens. The 55-year-old immigrant from Mexico used to make $800 per week at two Manhattan restaurants, which closed when the COVID-19 pandemic started.
A few months later, he couldn’t afford the rent of his Bronx room, and afterward, of another room in Queens he moved into. “I never thought I would end up like this, like I am today,” he said in Spanish, his eyes filling up with tears.
Cirilo, who mainly speaks an indigenous language called Tlapanec, is part of an increasing number of unauthorized immigrants who are falling through the cracks due to the coronavirus pandemic, some advocates and nonprofits say.