In Viral Twitter Thread Activist Calls for Healthcare Reform as Her Father Enters COVID Treatment

While waiting for her father to receive treatment for coronavirus, Minnesota activist Emilia Gonzalez Avalos tweeted a lengthy thread, where she called for better treatment for immigrants and a better healthcare system.

Avalos, who is the executive director for the immigration non-profit Unidos MN, tweeted that her father, who works as an undocumented food system worker had been brought to the emergency room for a possible covid diagnosis. She said that, because her father is an undocumented worker "some politicians den[y] the frontline classification," despite the fact that he works so others can quarantine at home and still have food delivered.

She said a doctor told her she should probably say goodbye before admitting him. "I don't wish this to my worst enemy," she wrote. "I'm livid. And heartbroken. And scared s**tless."

In a later tweet, Avalos revealed that she did see her father, although she was heavily protected and wore a lot of PPE, before he went to the ICU. She offered words of encouragement, trying to help him pull through. "I reminded him how much we had already gone through, from his journey at the border, 2 Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump years under the shadows. This virus can't kill you dad. Please don't let it," she wrote in the thread.

In another tweet, she called for further action, not only for her father but for all Americans and immigrants. "My father and everyone else deserve so much better. A universal healthcare system, workplace protections, they need to be brought out of the shadows and into the dignified place in our community," she wrote.

In the last tweet in the thread, Avalos shared a selfie of her with her father, saying that she hopes that President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris work for immigration reform and get immigrants to "come out of the shadows."

Avalos' thread has been liked by over 16,000 people. It has been shared via retweet over 2,000 times.

A number of people responded to Avalos' tweets, offering well wishes for her father, and telling her that they were keeping her in their thoughts.

In one more tweet, Avalos called for further action from local politicians, singling out Minnesota House of Representatives Minority Leader Kurt Daudt, criticizing his "set of 'priorities,' although it's unclear what priorities exactly she's referring to. "[T]he bare minimum for ANY elected official, is the pursue a basic human caring & regard of the other. Bar is low, and still crushing them-Unbelievable," she wrote.