Campaign Action
A group of six DACA recipients have joined in taking legal action against Donald Trump over his cowardly decision to end the program, arguing that he “was motivated by unconstitutional bias against Mexicans and Latinos” in his move to upend the lives of 800,000 immigrant youth and their families. Among the Dreamers suing in this latest action are attorney Dulce Garcia and fourth-year medical student New Latthivongskorn:
Jirayut “New” Latthivongskorn, another plaintiff in the lawsuit on Monday, was brought to the United States from Thailand when he was nine. Latthivongskorn is now a fourth year medical student at University of California San Francisco and a master’s degree candidate in public health at Harvard. His DACA work authorization expires in January 2019.
His medical residency is not set to begin until a few months after that, and could be impossible if he loses his authorization to work legally.
“I have all these big ideas about how I want to change the world and change systems around health care,” Latthivongskorn, co-founder of Pre-Health Dreamers, a group that advocates for and assists undocumented immigrant youth seeking a career in medicine, said. “The fact I might not be able to get there is troubling and frustrating.”
Garcia, an attorney based in San Diego, put herself through the law school by clerking and parking cars. She told Reuters that she still remembers when she first applied for DACA and was congratulated by a government clerk after she filling out her social security number application. “I cried right there,” she said.
Now despite knowing no other country but this one as their home, Latthivongskorn, Garcia, and 800,000 undocumented immigrant youth will be at risk of deportation if Congress is unable to pass permanent legislative relief, like the bipartisan DREAM Act. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the time to make a phone call and tell your member of Congress that we need a vote on a clean DREAM Act now.