Deferred Action program that we have, known as
DACA, these are kids who were brought here
by their parents. They did nothing wrong.
We will immediately terminate President Obama's two
illegal executive amnesties.
If I didn't have DACA, I would not be able
to continue practicing medicine.
There are no exceptions.
I'm here. The patients are here. They're sick.
The day it is revoked, I have to take off my white coat.
I don't have any days off during rotation.
I power through the weekends, and
holidays aren't a thing.
I come in at 6:30, get out at 9.
Get home. You kind of microwave yourself something,
and go straight to bed.
I'm supposed to stay under an 80 hour workweek.
It's a picture of me and my mom
the day before I graduated college.
My mother and father came from Venezuela where
there's a lot of economic distress and political distress.
They wanted a better future for me and for themselves.
I was 7 years old, so we came here on a tourist visa.
We overstayed the tourist visa. My mother is
a babysitter and housekeeper. My father does
odd jobs, worked construction.
Right now, there's no path to legalization.
I would like to believe that there are options.
I can't think of any that are realistic,
other than doing what my parents do.
I think about it for about five seconds.
I find it a little unbearable to think about.
Then, I just forget about it because it just
fit in my brain.
Although, there had been undocumented students
in various medical schools - a few here, a few there.
We were the first medical school to change
our admissions policy to actually welcome
applications from students of DACA status.
We don't want to turn back now. We want to get them
down that path further and try to make it happen.
It is a huge chasm of uncertainty
in terms of, you know, imagine being three-fourths
of the way through a medical degree and then
just having that come to a complete hault.
Because a residency program cannot hire you
if you don't have work authorization. It's a big moment,
and we're all kind of holding our breath
and just hoping that clear heads prevail.
and really I think it's a matter of justice and fairness.
Without DACA, I'm at risk of losing my loans.
Then, there's the questions like what if I graduate?
What now? But I'm determined to finish, whether
it takes me seven years, or it takes me ten years.
My interest is in primary care because I grew up where
most of my community didn't have
access to healthcare.
Being undocumented in medical school, I mean you
blend in now. You're part of the crowd. But when I go
back home, the possibility of not being able to
finish medical school or a residency but having
already $150,000 in loans.
All of that makes me internally a different person,
even though externally I still have to show up
in a white coat and be professional.
It's like living a double life, right?
Sometimes.
They teach you. You know somebody says that they're
in pain, you don't second guess it.
You give them something for their pain
because even if they don't look like they're in pain,
that doesn't mean that they're not in pain.
There are 28 medical students, Madame President,
at Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine
in Chicago. If they lose their work permit, they have to
drop out of medical school.
What happens if DACA goes away?
Well obviously, they're subject to deportation.
Number two - no work permit.
To have these doctors, these potential doctors
diverted from this ambition because of political
negligence is unacceptable.
A measure we call the Bridge Act. This is an effort
by Senator Graham and myself to have a bipartisan
answer to the question about what happens
to these 800,000 others like them.
Will the so-called Dreamers, who were brought here
as minors, will they be deported?
They're called Dreamers because that's the most
sympathetic term, and they came here to live
in the shadows, so if we enforce the law,
and they live in the shadows, that's what they came
here to do.
I don't think we've thought through this very well.
If the kids are innocent, the parents are guilty.
We have to look at the parents.
Some people don't like me saying this, but sometimes
working in a lab feels similar to working in a kitchen.
You end up needing a lot of tubes and heating
them in the autoclave, so kind of similar to an oven.
It makes me wonder, you know, those people that were
working in the kitchens if given the chance, how many
of those people would actually have excelled working
in a lab.
My parents have mostly worked in either the fields
or in factories, processing food.
Right now, many discussions that are going on
are going to the extremes. You know, we're going
to deport all of them, or we're going to give
special treatment to these very high-achievers.
Did she hear a pop when it started at all?
If, let's say medical students are deported,
it'll make bigger news, right?
And people will see that as something negative.
But if you deport the "normal" people,
I would like my parents to also be able to somehow
fix their status because they've suffered, too.
It's not just us "Dreamers" or DACA students.
I don't think it's fair that they say that the Dreamers are
okay, but the other undocumented people aren't.
Those are my patients. Those are my future patients.
I came here in 1993. I have two kids, and they were
very young at that time.
My son, he is a lawyer now.
My daughter, Aaima, she's in third year
of medical school.
For me, their education was very important.
During education, they didn't have any
immigration status.
Their father left country, and he was the petitioner.
So their cases got affected.
One time, Aaima said that I have been struggling
studying, but I don't know for what.
Because I don't see my future.
I feel honestly, I feel very bad,
but for me, this is the country, and
I love this country.
DACA students are immigrants that are likable
or marketable to the general public.
But framing so-called Dreamers as being different
from the rest, I don't think we are different.
Because all immigrants are dreamers. We all
came here because of the promise of the
American dream.