Undocumented people are among most vulnerable to climate-infused disasters

Carmen, her husband and three children were sound asleep in their western North Carolina home when she heard her phone ring that late September morning. It was her brother-in-law alerting the family to downed trees, powerlines and homes destroyed by historic rain and strong winds from Hurricane Helene.

Carmen looked outside as she talked with her brother-in-law. The river that usually flowed contained within its banks behind her property was nearly level with her home's foundation.

"I believe that if we never received that call, I don't know what would have happened," she says in Spanish. "Maybe the current would have taken us."

Carmen's two-bedroom home and everything inside was destroyed by Helene.

Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida's coast on Sept. 26 before sweeping up to Georgia, the Carolinas and parts of Tennessee, leaving a 500-mile path of destruction in its wake. More than 40 trillion gallons of water across the Southeast brought flooding and landslides in the region including in the community Carmen lives in. Millions of people lost power. In North Carolina alone, more than 100 people died.

Communities throughout the region continue to rebuild in the aftermath of Helene and two other big hurricanes this fall. But for families like Carmen's, that can be particularly difficult.

The stay-at-home mother of three is undocumented, which means she doesn't have the proper paperwork to reside in the country. She arrived from a coastal Mexican city 13 years ago after her extended family had already planted roots in North Carolina. She spoke to NPR on the condition that her last name not be used. Because of her status, she fears being separated from her children, who are American citizens.

Undocumented and mixed-status families like Carmen's and the millions like hers are some of the most vulnerable people in the country during hurricanes and other extreme weather events. Even when mandatory evacuation orders are in place, many choose to remain because they worry seeking help through the federal and state governments or disaster-aid groups could lead to deportation and families being split up. It's a stark reality as human-caused climate change increases the intensity of hurricanes.

Carmen is among the nearly estimated 2 million undocumented people who live in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, according to the Pew Research Center. In western North Carolina and north Florida, undocumented people work on farms, in poultry factories, dairies and Christmas tree farms. Carmen's husband works in landscaping, but after the storm he and his coworkers shifted to cleaning up downed trees and debris.

Without federal assistance, Carmen and her family have had to rely on friends and nonprofits for help. After evacuating their home, a nonprofit gave Carmen and her family dry clothes. A neighbor offered temporary housing. The family moved in to discover "holes in the floor, water leaks from the roof, there's mold, and no kitchen," Carmen says.

Limited federal help

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a household member must be a U.S. citizen, a person born in a U.S.-owned territory (American Samoa or Swain's Island) or a qualified non-citizen, such as a green card holder, or a refugee to apply for federal disaster aid. Undocumented people cannot access FEMA's cash aid, but they can connect to FEMA's crisis counseling, disaster legal services and other non-cash emergency aid.

FEMA provided hotel vouchers to people who lost their homes or experienced damage from torrential rain or strong winds. According to North Carolina's Office of State Budget and Management, 126,000 homes were damaged across the western part of the state from Helene. Tens of thousands of Florida homes were damaged.

However, undocumented people are not allowed access to state IDs or government identification in North Carolina. So many were left with nowhere to go if their homes were destroyed or damaged during the storm, says Yolanda Adams, co-founder of Q'Pasa Appalachia.

The company started in 2020 to provide news in Spanish for the growing Latino community in western North Carolina. Q'Pasa Appalachia connected people with jobs and aid during the pandemic. Adams says her organization quickly transformed into providing disaster aid after Helene.

She says hotel vouchers were given to the American-born children of undocumented parents in the country illegally as a legal workaround, but most hotels require someone to be at least 18 years old to book a room.

"Then when they go to a hotel, the hotel cannot accommodate them because they cannot do the reservation or have a minor under the account," Adams says.

Since Carmen is undocumented, she applied for FEMA's serious needs assistance and other needs to replace furniture and homegoods on behalf of her children to start life over again for her family. In the days after Helene, they needed housing, beds, clothes and food.

Carmen submitted the paperwork to FEMA days after Helene, but she's found the process long and confusing.

"[FEMA] told me that something was missing, that they couldn't verify it all, but I told them I already brought them everything," Carmen says in Spanish. She's already had to go to a disaster recovery center four times to answer questions and follow up. Carmen has yet to receive an update from FEMA.

FEMA spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg says if someone receives a decision that they don't agree with, they can appeal. Sometimes the agency can deny an application because of a technical error like an incorrect name or social security number.

"There's many reasons why you could get a denial, but we want to make sure that we get people to a yes," Rothenberg says.

Even when help is offered, many remain fearful

With nowhere to go and no access to government identification in her state, Carmen doesn't know what she would have done if community members hadn't reached out to help.

"[After evacuating] we had to look for shelter because the weather was so bad," she says in Spanish. "We were going to go look, but the roads were already blocked by fallen trees. We couldn't get through anymore. So we sat in a parking lot and [waited]."

Joseph Trujillo-Falcón is a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He studies how undocumented communities respond to extreme weather and climate threats.

His research showed many undocumented people didn't evacuate their homes during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 because of a federal law that states Customs and Border Protection agents can search vehicles without a search warrant "within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States." Regulators define "reasonable distance" as within 100 miles of land and maritime borders.

"Individuals were under mandatory evacuations, but during that time the Trump administration stated that immigration and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] was going to stay open during this time," Trujillo-Falcón says. "Since there's immigration checkpoints along the border in these areas, families had to make a decision: 'Do I evacuate or do I run the risk of never seeing my family again?'"

Trujillo-Falcón says state officials in Texas, where Harvey hit hardest, shut down immigration checkpoints during mandatory evacuations despite the federal direction. But that confusion caused people to stay home instead of seeking safety.

That changed under the Biden administration. During Hurricanes Debby and Helene immigration enforcement activities were temporarily halted along evacuation routes, shelters and distribution sites for emergency supplies.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to oversee the largest number of deportations in the country's history. That proposal has researchers like Trujillo-Falcón concerned, especially as it relates to future disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires.

"Disasters could potentially be leveraged to enforce deportation efforts, especially during evacuation efforts," Trujillo-Falcón says.

Michael Mendez teaches environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine. He points out that information could be shared with other agencies within the Department of Homeland Security, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Federal, state, local and major disaster aid groups, he says, need to do more outreach and build relationships with the most vulnerable communities including undocumented people before extreme weather strikes.

Limited options for help

Yolanda Adams with Q'Pasa Appalachia helped Carmen replace her furniture, beds and clothes for her three children. She and her family remain in temporary housing provided by a neighbor.

With nowhere to go and the lack of federal assistance, nonprofits, churches and communities play life-saving roles for undocumented and mixed-status families like Carmen's and the millions like her.

In the wake of Helene, American Red Cross spokesperson Stephanie Fox says the nonprofit provided large emergency shelters in Asheville, N.C., to people needing housing — and Fox says identification is not required for assistance.

"When a disaster happens, the Red Cross works individually with people to determine what the next steps are," Fox says. That could mean housing, food assistance, transportation or hygiene kits.

Other organizations that help migrants, though, started to notice the lack of resources from federal, state and large disaster aid organizations for undocumented people after Hurricane Harvey and wildfires in California in 2017 according to Mendez, the environmental policy researcher.

He says 2017 marked the first time nonprofits started to fund disaster aid efforts for undocumented people in Central and Southern California after the Thomas Fire in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties and the Nuns and Tubbs Fires in Sonoma County.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene the nonprofit, the Rural Women's Health Project, in Gainesville, Fla. helped connect Latino immigrants, Indigenous and Haitian Creole speakers to social, health and education services across seven counties in Northern Florida affected by the hurricane.

Veronica Robleto, who is the executive director of the project, says the flooding destroyed many pine straw, dairy and poultry farms in the region. The farms that did survive had inaccessible roads due to flooding or downed trees, she explained. The Rural Women's Health Project heard of several workers who were told they would lose their job if they couldn't make it to work.

"Unemployment has been a huge issue related to these storms," Robleto says. "Employment had already been very low in these areas, very low-income areas, but [extreme weather] has exacerbated that problem."

What the future could hold 

Nonprofits like the Rural Women's Health Project in Florida are already getting ready for next year's hurricane season. Robleto says her staff prepared for Hurricane Milton just two weeks after Helene hit.

"We just were in disbelief, thinking 'Oh my gosh, really? Another one already?'" she says.

Robleto has noticed the uptick in extreme weather, as human-caused climate change has made hurricanes more intense.

"Hurricane season at this point is half the year for Florida," she said. "So we really want to put effort into a campaign around preparedness."

Robleto says her organization wants to hire a case manager to help non-English speakers with filling out disaster aid forms for the next hurricane season.

As for Carmen, she and her family have been living in interim housing and she doesn't see an end in sight. Most current rentals in the region are out of her price range. She told NPR her family could not find a place to live under $1,200 a month.

"That's what we can pay, but $1,600, $1,800, $2,000, well no," she says.