During the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beatriz Winters did her best to help spread useful information for undocumented immigrants across Minnesota through a private Facebook page.
There, Winters recalled recently, she met a woman whose husband had landed in the emergency room with a COVID-19 diagnosis. The woman and her husband, Winters said, ran into an unexpected problem during a contact tracing interview and reached out to her for help.
“She calls crying because she’s being told that they will share her information with the police and ICE,” Winters said, referring to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. “I was totally taken aback.”
The husband was already scared of being deported because he is undocumented, Winters explained. Now both he and his wife feared that sharing their address with law enforcement would make deportation more likely.
The situation stemmed from a routine post-infection questionnaire that the Minnesota Department of Health conducts with patients who have tested positive for the virus. That’s when a health department employee will ask questions to trace other people who may be infected. They also offer advice about recovery and limiting the spread of the virus.
One of the questions the contact tracer asks is whether the patient would be willing to share his or her home address with the health department. The tracer then discloses that this information will be provided to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. The Public Safety Department, in turn, will share the addresses with 911 dispatch centers across the state.
