I’m a recovery trauma nurse at Intermountain Hospital. If you come into the emergency room after a car accident, I will be the one who takes care of you after surgery. I’ll remove your breathing tube, comfort you while you wake up from anesthesia and treat your pain and nausea. I always treat patients with respect and try to cultivate strong relationships with doctors so I can be your advocate.
I’m also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who came to this country when I was 14 years old. After my father was killed as a bystander to drug violence, my mom was willing to uproot our lives in order to keep me and my younger brother safe.
Since 2012, I’ve been lucky to benefit from DACA – a governmental program that allowed immigrants like myself to get a Social Security number, a driver license and a legal job.
But last September, President Trump announced that he was shutting down the program – unless Congress acted to protect me and the country’s 800,000 other Dreamers from deportation. Since then, we’ve been left in limbo.
The original March 5 deadline to save DACA has come and gone. In the meantime, a federal court ordered that Dreamers like myself could apply for a renewal of their protected status as a stopgap solution. If my renewal doesn’t arrive before August, I’ll be forced to leave my job.
I can’t even begin to tell you what my job means to me. In my early 20s, I took care of my beloved cousin, who suffered from leukemia. I’ve wanted to be a nurse ever since. It’s an incredible feeling to see how something as simple as a kind touch can lift a patient’s spirits. I’ve also worked hard to put myself through college at the University of Utah. It took me 10 years to graduate, but I’m a proud holder of a bachelor’s degree in nursing.
Now I want to go back to school so I can become a nurse practitioner. I’d also like to buy a house and help out my family financially. But, like many of Utah’s 13,600 DACA recipients, my dreams are on hold. When DACA was canceled, I lost the only security I have ever known. Now instead of learning new ways to help patients, I have to worry about getting deported.
It’s well known that Utah is in the middle of one of the worst nursing shortages in the nation. In fact, we rank 47th in the nurse-to-patient ratio, according to the Utah Medical Education Council. The situation is only predicted to get worse, as one third of the nursing workforce is planning to retire within the next five to 10 years. Yet research by New American Economy shows that DACA-eligible immigrants are poised to help alleviate the shortage and have filled more than 3,400 positions nationally so far.
I’m begging Congress to find a solution that will allow the Dreamers to continue contributing our talents where they are needed most. This is in spite of Trump’s latest tweets declaring that a DACA deal is dead. According to a new poll, it’s something that most Americans – including the vast majority of conservatives and Republicans – support.
For me, serving Utah’s most vulnerable patients is the ultimate way I can give back to this country – the country I call home. Now, all I’m asking for is the chance to do my job.
Karla Mitre
Karla Mitre is a post anesthesia care unit nurse at Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake City.