With the coronavirus forcing nonessential businesses to close and colleges to shutter their campuses and clinics, students in the final stages of work-based training find themselves in limbo.

Many of these individuals come from low-income families. Some programs can be completed in a year or less, which appeals to students with limited funds looking for a quick entry into a job. Those students were counting on jobs they assumed were just months away but now seem just out of reach.

Working in the intensive care unit during a pandemic is not the only thing giving Jessica Esparza anxiety these days. Her very future in the United States remains precarious: She is one of roughly 700,000 beneficiaries of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. These individuals could eventually lose their work permits and protections if the U.S. Supreme Court rules the Trump administration has authority to end the program.

For DACA recipients on the front lines of COVID-19, the uncertainty is an extra layer of stress as they work through an already stressful situation.