Don’t deport DACA health care workers
This past November, I started a nursing job at Houston Methodist West Hospital. I’d barely settled into my routine treating cardiovascular patients when COVID-19 upended our lives. Today, I’m working 12to 14-hour shifts on the newly-created COVID-19 floor, fighting to stabilize patients and keep them from transferring to the ICU to be intubated — because once that happens, their chance of survival decreases.
And yet, any day now, I could lose the right to do this essential work. I’m a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives legal status to undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children. Any day now, the Supreme Court is expected to let President Donald Trump end DACA. That would make me and 660,000 other young people like me, eligible for deportation.
The consequences of this will be devastating. I’d have to leave my U.S.-citizen wife and our new baby. My wife is also a nurse, and I’m the only one who takes care of our child when she’s at work. We built our house in Houston and we have a mortgage to pay, which would be difficult on her income alone. My daughter just started walking last week — to think I’d be separated from her for any period of time is awful. I’d also have to leave my patients, many of whom are at the hospital for the first time in their lives, sick with an unknown virus and feeling scared and alone. I’m one of the few nurses on my floor who is fluent in Spanish, which is crucial, since nearly 45 percent of Houston’s population is Hispanic. On a daily basis, I’m called in to translate for other staff members and their patients.
Amid the stress and fear, I’ve been lucky enough to witness dozens of recoveries on my floor. We’ve started plasma transfusions, where we inject antibodies from those who’ve recovered into sick patients. One of my greatest joys is seeing a patient walk out of the hospital and knowing that I played a role in their recovery.
My parents came to the United States from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, when I was 3 years old to escape poverty. We settled in Nashville, Tenn., and my father found work laying bricks under the hot sun while my mom cleaned houses and sold food to construction workers from the back of her car. They soon had my three younger brothers. Today they’re successful entrepreneurs with three local businesses: a jewelry store, an event coordinating business and flower shop and a formal wear boutique.
I’m the only one of my siblings without citizenship, and I didn’t realize I was undocumented until high school when I couldn’t get a driver’s license or travel abroad with my church. I was confused, because I felt just as American as anyone else; I don’t even remember Mexico. I decided to become a nurse when I learned about the need for bilingual nurses in the United States, a shortage that has tripled since 2014, according to research by New American Economy. But without DACA, I would have languished on the sidelines. Prior to the program, I was paying thousands of dollars in nursing school tuition, but I couldn’t take the licensing exam or legally work without a Social Security number. Amazingly, right before the exam in 2012, DACA was announced. I cried as I watched the announcement. I could now achieve my dreams and do my part for the country I call home.
To have the Supreme Court let Trump rip it all away makes no sense. Nearly 62,000 health care workers have DACA. It takes weeks or months to properly train a new employee, so it’d be impossible to replace tens of thousands of health care workers in the middle of a pandemic. As Texas begins to reopen, I worry we’ll see a spike in infections and hospitalization rates. If myself and other DACA recipients in health care are no longer there to help, who will replace us? Congress has the power to give us a path to citizenship. With thousands of lives at stake, it’s time to let us stay home.