“This is a public-policy conundrum and systems failure of a whole other level because of the economic and the public-health consequences,” said Sonja Diaz, founding director of the Latino Policy & Politics Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Ultimately, we’ve failed to respond and to stop the bleeding because we’ve made decisions that either willfully or because of the lack of understanding have excluded the very populations that are critical to the state’s functioning and are also the ones that need our help the most.”