Laura Rodriguez, an attorney who represents undocumented immigrants in restaurant labor disputes, said these workers often don’t know their rights and will therefore accept wages below the city’s minimum wage, which is $10.50 or $11 an hour, depending on a business’s size.

In interviews with undocumented workers in restaurants across New York City, many of them said they make $5 or $6 an hour. One man, who has been a deliveryman at Flor de Mayo, a Spanish restaurant on the Upper West Side, for 15 years, said he’s never earned more than $6 an hour.

“These are often people who work insane amounts of hours for insanely low amounts of money,” said Rodriguez. “They’re holding the hospitality industry together.”

Many restaurant owners said that the city’s high rents—the average Manhattan restaurant pays $120 a square foot – leave them with a small profit margin. If they had to hire Americans, they’d be forced to pay their employees a minimum of $35,000 a year. Most undocumented immigrants who work in restaurants, on the other hand, are paid an average of $14,560 a year, assuming 52 weeks of work at $7 an hour.

Reynaldo, an undocumented immigrant, said he earns $7.50 an hour cooking, cleaning and delivering food for Trend Diner on the Upper East Side. He earns around $1,000 a month—barely enough to support his wife and two young daughters. He knows that he’s underpaid, but he doesn’t look for another job, he said, because the pay is the same everywhere for undocumented immigrants.

“I have no future,” Reynaldo said.

Solis’s wage was much higher than the average pay for undocumented restaurant workers. After a dozen years of professional baking, Solis got so good and fast at churning out bread that his boss paid him $17 an hour. He said he’ll never earn that wage again.  “To be a baker was a career for me,” Solis said.

On a bright Saturday morning in April, Tom Cat Bakery workers stood beside politicians and activists outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, chanting, “No borders, no walls, immigrants they feed us all!”

April 20 was Solis’s final day at Tom Cat Bakery. He and his undocumented co-workers left work early, unable to get through the day knowing it was their last. “I’m going to miss the place,” Solis said, adding that he’s begun to search for another job. His voice was heavy and interrupted with his deep sighs.

He wonders who will fill all those empty positions at the bakery. In the summer, the massive ovens bring temperatures to over 120 degrees.

“It gets really, really hot,” Solis said. “Who’s going to do the job?”

Many undocumented construction workers are day laborers, who get picked up for projects that last anywhere from days to months.

Contractors typically seek out undocumented labor for residential or small-business projects, which make up about one-third of the city’s construction, according to an affiliate of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In general, large public projects such as airports or hospitals are required to go through unions, which largely exclude undocumented immigrants. Other projects that require highly skilled workers often favor union work, leaving mostly small-scale, low-skilled work to undocumented workers.

Yet even for day laborers who land longer projects, work from one day to the next is not guaranteed. While some of them try their luck at the paradas, others collect in day labor centers, nonprofits that help connect employers with workers.

In the small office belonging to the New Immigrant Community Empowerment center, labor organizer Lynda Cruz sits at a table with eight men, making calls to potential employers. In between calls, she asks the group in Spanish, “Who still needs to get OSHA-certified?” “Is anybody a plumber?” “Who speaks English? Anyone?”

The median hourly wage of all construction laborers was $16.25 nationwide in 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But most of the jobs coming through the labor center pay between $11 and $15.

One contractor who hires undocumented workers said that the explanation is simple.

“It’s just the money,” said Nick. “Let’s say a job costs $50,000. No documents, they can give just $35,000.” By hiring undocumented workers, Nick can charge $15,000 less over roughly three months.

Giovanni Peri, a labor economics researcher at the University of California, Davis, said that employing undocumented workers also has more subtle advantages. Money saved gets invested: in part in more low-skilled workers, but in part in expanding the company at all levels.

“You need more supervisors when you hire more workers,” he said.

But recent political rhetoric and reports of deportations have shaken the community of undocumented workers.

“We could be arrested at any moment,” Eudes, an undocumented day laborer, said in Spanish.

Eudes believes the uncertainty plaguing the undocumented community has also affected employers, who may be thinking twice about hiring undocumented workers. Normally, he said, contractors will hire workers as long as they provide an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, which ensures that both the contractor and the employee pay taxes. The ITIN does not legally authorize a person to work, but many independent contractors accept it anyway as a way to cut corners.

Peri said that the concept of simply replacing undocumented labor with American labor is naive.

“All the rhetoric is ‘Oh, take away the immigrants and the natives will find those jobs,’” he said. “But the problem is that a lot of those jobs will not be there at all.” The reason, he said, is that paying higher wages to American-born workers will leave less money to fill all the job openings left by undocumented workers.

Edwin Vargas, a labor organizer with various community groups, said he doesn’t believe any other community would do the work of undocumented immigrants for the price they are paid. To Vargas, a New York City without undocumented labor is unimaginable. From the bathrooms and private offices to the skyscrapers, undocumented labor is cemented into the city.

Vargas still has vivid memories of the days after the Twin Towers fell, when vans headed to Ground Zero drove past the paradas, picking up workers for $150 a day.

He remembers, too, the day after Hurricane Sandy swept over Rockaway, undocumented workers lifting a boat out of the road, cleaning up the remains of people’s homes.

He said undocumented workers have helped pick up the city during some of its hardest times.

“Someone has to do it,” Vargas said in Spanish. “Who’s going to do it? God’s not going to do it.”

Flora, a mother of two in Brooklyn, hired an once-undocumented Nepali nanny after her son was born five years ago. When Flora had her second child, she rested knowing the nanny was caring for her son at home; when Flora’s grandfather died in California, she flew to the funeral confident her kids were in good hands.

Flora pays her nanny $20 an hour, plus an unlimited monthly MetroCard and $140 for health insurance, but said the woman’s work is priceless.

“You can’t put a value on it,” Flora said. “I couldn’t do my job and my husband couldn’t do his job.”

Domestic work has two values – the labor itself and how that labor enables others to work – explained Hector Cordero-Guzman, a sociologist and economist who consulted on a 2012 study by the National Domestic Workers Alliance. But pay doesn’t always reflect economic contribution, he said.

Domestic workers interviewed for this story earned as much as $22 and as little as $5 an hour. In 2016, the average housecleaner in New York City made $15.88 an hour, and the average nanny $13.26, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. In general, undocumented domestic workers earn only 88 percent of what U.S. citizens do, a 2012 nationwide survey reported.

The National Labor Relations Act prohibits domestic workers from collectively bargaining in unions, so advocates rallied to pass the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights in 2010. The legislation covers the right to minimum wage, overtime after 40 hours a week, a day of rest every seven days and three each year, and protection against harassment and retaliation. But in the intimate and informal workplace of the home, not all employers follow the rules.

“No one is knocking on doors to check on labor rights unless there are complaints,” said Ilana Berger, who founded the non-profits Hand in Hand and Sanctuary Homes for employers to protect their undocumented domestic workers. “Good working conditions and wages benefit the worker and employer alike. It’s not dignified to be an employer who treats the worker poorly, especially when they’re caring for the people that you love the most.”

Some employers value their undocumented domestic workers so much that they try to get them citizenship. Flora recently visited a lawyer to see whether she could help her nanny, without success.

Manhattan immigration attorney Ian Scott, who received several calls from employers who want to sponsor their nannies’ green cards, said it’s impossible to do so unless the worker already has some form of legal status. In the past, when immigration laws were not as strict, employers did sponsor workers – but it came with a cost.

When Sanaa immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago 32 years ago, she lived with a Long Island family who sponsored her green card. She earned $8 an hour and in 10 years working, only got two weeks of vacation and three sick days.

“Most people who hire you take you for granted,” Sanaa said. “There’s still slavery in this job.”

The situation is worst for live-in domestic workers, who stay with their employers and often work more hours than they agreed upon or for which they’re paid. Dianne and her fellow workers call live-in: “slave camp.”

Dianne’s first job in New York City was as a live-in nanny on Long Island in 2000. She earned only $325 for 14-hour days – less than $5 an hour.

“Live-in never stops. I was hired as a nanny, not a housekeeper. But because I was living in, they were pushing house things on me,” Dianne said. “You become a yes person, it doesn’t even matter, you just want to work. When you’re in the work place, you start feeling ridiculed and exploited. You compromise yourself.”

Some undocumented domestic workers said they’re targeted because of their immigration status. Dianne’s friend Patricia told the story of how she chided her male employer for speaking harshly to his daughter in 2009. He threatened to report her to Immigration Customs Enforcement, called her a “black bitch,” and punched her in the face. With the help of activists and attorneys, Patricia took him to court and won $1,300 – although it was only for wage theft, not compensation for assault.

“I’ve been threatened with immigration. They tell you they can take advantage of you because you’re undocumented,” she said. “I won my case, but not justice.”

For undocumented domestic workers, Trump’s presidency ignites terror. Dianne remembered crying the whole night after the election results. She feared being deported before she could complete her college degree. She is only two classes away from graduating.

When Dianne went to work the next day, she told her employers about those concerns. The couple reassured her that if she ever had a problem, she could come there, that it was a sanctuary home. Six months later, she repeated what they had told her that day.

“America is an immigrant country, so no matter what Trump says, there’s no way he can get rid of all the immigrants. How would America function? That’s how New York is. We need immigrants.”

The Council of Fashion Designers of America released a report in March to express fears about what could happen to the fashion industry under President Trump.

“Deporting the country’s undocumented population would be disruptive and financially damaging for New York and the fashion industry,” read the report. “Deportation would cause a reduction in the fashion industry’s workforce.” In 2005, 75 percent of the fashion industry, from the sewing machine operators to high fashion designers and models, was comprised of immigrants. 

Amelia works 30 to 40 hours a week for $11.50 an hour, depending on how bad her asthma is in a given week. She is grateful for that salary, as many other undocumented workers in fashion get paid less. This is especially true in Los Angeles, where 85 percent of factories broke wage laws in 2016, according to an investigation by the Federal Labor Department. Garment workers were found to be paid $5 or $6 an hour, far below California’s minimum wage of $10.50.

Although Amelia’s breathing grows more difficult, she’s learned to appreciate her days of sewing. It’s the working with fabrics that she most misses about her life in Mexico.

Recently Amelia has felt something other than fear: indignation. She’s been attending union workshops and is researching if there is anyway to attain her U.S. citizenship. 

“There is a lot of collective fear,” Amelia said. “But one has to stay focused on what you want. We need to keep fighting.”

Unwilling to engage in that lifestyle, he moved to the United States at the age of 17. Now, his mother lives upstate, and he has a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son.

Depending on the weather, Rivera works anywhere between 52 to 60 hours per week. Before he came to the U.S., he lived in a small village where he farmed, cut grass, and cared for his land. Rivera said he feels protected in his current job because of the union, but if he wasn’t working here he could still find something in construction or landscaping through his relatives.

“My personal goals are really about my children,” Rivera said. “I have my two kids, and my focus is just making sure that they do well, and that they have a future.”

The contract the car wash workers are fighting for would stop the owner from hiring part-timers and cutting the hours of current employees. For Rivera, a contract would also serve as a show of respect.

Chelsea Connor, a RWDSU representative, spoke about the challenges of convincing immigrants to unionize.

“They don’t necessarily understand the fundamentals of a union,” Chelsea Connor said. “They are often fearful of any sort of group or organization that looks official in any way – that wants to come in and organize. There’s a whole process involved in going into a store – or in this case, a car wash. Talking to workers, understanding what their needs are. Do they want to unionize; do they need to unionize.”

The Cross Bronx Car Wash made news after an employee died in early 2016. A spokesperson for the city Medical Examiner attributed the death to natural causes. Still, the man’s co-workers cited his exposure to strong chemical cleaning products.

As of 2015, there were approximately 200 car washes in New York City employing 2,200 workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, workers paid off-the-books were not represented in the official data. Some estimate that more than 2,800 undocumented immigrants work at car washes in New York.

Ben Townsend, communications coordinator for RWDSU, said he believed all workers at the Cross Bronx Car Wash were undocumented, except one or two. Amid President Donald Trump’s attempted crackdown on undocumented worker, officials at the RWDSU and its members say all they can do is continue their work.

“It doesn’t affect me,” Rivera said. “If they want to kick us out, they can kick us out.”

Barrios maintains Temporary Protection Status as part of DACA, the 2012 policy that allows undocumented immigrants who entered the country as minors to receive a two-year renewable period of deferment from deportation and work permit eligibility.

Barrios has held a work permit since around 2013 and spends his days in a supervisory role at a downtown Manhattan-based public health clinic’s department of sexual health services. Overseeing a staff of 10, Barrios splits his time between administrative duties, and the hands-on treatment of clients. When he’s not drawing blood for sexually transmitted disease screenings and rapid HIV tests, he’s answering sex education-related questions.

“Our clinic caters mainly to LGBT, but anyone can come in regardless of their ability to pay,” Barrios said. “All different kinds of people come in seeking treatment. A lot of people actually say that they feel more comfortable with us because they don’t feel like they’re being judged.” Barrios earns around $50,000 a year and pays state, local, and federal taxes, including Social Security and Medicare.

“I give back more to the state, than the state gives me,” Barrios joked.

Barrios’s co-workers are constantly brainstorming ways for him to gain citizenship. Even as a DACA recipient, Barrios faces a litany of restrictions, including on his ability to travel.

“This is all some crazy sociological experiment,” Barrios said. “You’ll always be jailed within the U.S. borders.”