Freed from deportation threats, more of the undocumented may be able to take regular jobs with health insurance for themselves and their families, instead of operating in shadow jobs without health insurance. They will not be covered by Obamacare, however.

And Latinos who are already legal residents – millions of whom remain uninsured – may feel more comfortable signing up for subsidized Obamacare coverage. There have been widespread reports that they had feared signing up might tip off authorities to family members who were undocumented, risking their deportation.

The president’s bold action on immigration “will spill over to the health care arena,” predicted Frank Rodriguez, executive director of the Latino Healthcare Forum, which enrolls Hispanics in Obamacare around Austin, Texas. Latinos are a big target for the second Affordable Care Act sign up season just getting underway, and Rodriguez said the executive action would build enthusiasm and trust.

Covering the undocumented, who are mostly Latinos, has been a flashpoint ever since the health reform debate began early in Obama’s first term. The “you lie” moment - when Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) interrupted Obama’s address to Congress - was one of the most rancorous in the whole health debate. But the health law specifically excludes the undocumented from the ACA exchanges - even if they could pay for it themselves — and from Medicaid. That ban was extended to the “DREAMers” in 2012, and now to the roughly 5 million covered in the president’s Thursday evening executive order.

The lack of access to health coverage for a population with an estimated 60 percent uninsurance rate remains a bitter pill for immigration reform activists who otherwise welcome Obama’s moves. But for the Latinos who are in the U.S. legally, the president’s new policy may spur more enrollment. Many people working on Hispanic enrollment have said people have voiced fears that signing up could somehow lead immigration officials to undocumented family members, threatening them with deportation. Obama himself went on Spanish-language television earlier this year to try to dispel those fears.

Many Latinos did end up enrolling; the rate of uninsurance in working-age Hispanic adults shrank from 36 percent to 23 percent after the first open enrollment, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey. By comparison, Commonwealth found the uninsured rate of the general population moved from 16 percent to 12 percent.

Bringing more legal Latinos into Obamacare coverage is a priority for this year. In the week before the start of open enrollment Nov. 15, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell participated in a online hangout with Latina bloggers and sat for interviews with Univision and Telemundo. She spent Saturday in Tampa, Fla., and Tuesday in Houston. Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta – the first Latina to hold the post – was also in Houston, as well as San Antonio, last week. Labor Secretary Tom Perez hit Cleveland.

Last year, CuidadodeSalud.gov, the Spanish-language portal of HealthCare.gov, wasn’t up and running until December, and even then, people complained that its translation was hard to understand and its upload feature didn’t work. (More than 100,000 people who registered on the federal exchanges lost coverage at the end of September because of unresolved problems with matching up immigration records.) This year, there are still some complaints – it was unclear where to upload a green card, for example, and the application process for families that have a mixture of immigration statuses can feel like forever. But generally officials say the rollout en espanol has been smoother. New York, which has its own state exchange, also debuted a Spanish-language site this year after forgoing it in 2013.

Spanish-language media is also being pulled in. Young Invincibles, for example, designated one of its California-based staffers to be in charge of coordinating young adult enrollment messaging with Spanish-language media nationwide ahead of this year’s open enrollment. And Covered California, the state exchange, is running ads to reassure people in mixed-status families – those with combinations of citizens, legal residents, and undocumented members – that there is no risk of exposing relatives to deportation.

Obama’s executive order might ease fears on that front. But ultimately, the most credible messengers in the Hispanic community are friends and family, enrollment experts say.

“That fear factor has kind of subsided. I think enough people have gotten health insurance that there’s word of mouth,” said Rodriguez. “They’re hearing: my cousin got in, my neighbor.”

Covered California said it was leaning more on community-based organizations to serve as spokespeople. Foreign consulates are also emerging as key partners: Officials in Washington said they’re continuing the successful strategy of setting up shop in Latin American embassies, Florida enrollment groups are looking to coordinate with consulates too. Of 200,000 calls to Healthcare.gov’s call centers in the first weekend, 20,000 went to Spanish-speaking representatives, Burwell tweeted on Monday.

Michael Gusmano, a research scholar at the Hastings Institute who has studied immigrants’ use of health care, said trust may build slowly. “There’s likely to be a bit of a delayed reaction, and some skepticism of course that executive orders could change.”

The lack of coverage options for the undocumented does affect the bottom line for safety net providers.

Michael Brooks, who runs a network of federally-qualified health centers in the Atlanta area, said that most of his undocumented patients lack insurance. Because they cannot afford to pay the full fee, “we lose about $150 per visit,” Brooks said. Multiply that by 3,000 or 4,000 and it adds up to 25 percent of the centers’ uncompensated care costs. While the federal government pays the Family Health Centers of Georgia a grant to treat the uninsured, they typically don’t keep pace with the clinics’ spending, Brooks said.

Georgia did not expand Medicaid, another factor that holding down Latino enrollment, especially in Florida and Texas. But emergency Medicaid is available to undocumented immigrants just about everywhere – if they’re facing death.

Some parts of the country do have more options. Washington, D.C. has a program for residents who don’t qualify for and can’t afford other care. Regardless of immigration status, kids are eligible for Medicaid in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington state and New York – though it’s at the expense of state taxpayers; there’s no federal matching funds. California is at the vanguard: DREAMers can sign up for Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, and a bill in the state house would even create a mirror health exchange for the undocumented, complete with subsidies. It failed last session, but a recent poll shows majority support, and advocates are optimistic it will pass next year if lawmakers can agree on how to pay for it.

And private companies are clearly interested in the Latino health care market. One startup, ConsejoSano, lets Spanish-speakers call licensed doctors in Mexico whenever they have a health issue for $14.99 a month. The company is marketing it as an option for the undocumented. Abner Mason, its founder, said a third of problems can be solved over the phone, and for others, clients can be referred to clinics that accept cash. The company is in talks with one California county with a high proportion of undocumented workers to run a pilot program that would test whether it saves money on safety net care and improves overall health. And Mason hopes to be able to write prescriptions from his call center south of the border soon.