Editor's Note: Juan Carlos (JC) Alejaldre is currently a DACA beneficiary and an administrator in the Population and Community Health Division at NewYork-Presbyterian, where for the past four months he led an effort to get Covid stores up and running -19 at NewYork-Presbyterian Columbia and Allen Campus Hospitals. He is studying for his doctorate in Community Health and Health Policy from the CUNY School of Public Health. Follow him on twitter @JCAlejaldre The opinions expressed in this comment are his. See more opinion at CNNe.com/opinion
(CNN) - For the past four months, I've been fighting two battles. One against a well-known threat to New York City and the world, covid-19. The other, against a less visible threat to immigrants across the country, the Trump administration's systematic attempts to dismantle Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): the program that protects Dreamers (undocumented immigrants like me). who came to the United States as children) from deportation.
The program is not perfect. It provides us with a work permit that must be renewed every two years, but it does not provide a path to legalization or citizenship or the ability to travel outside of the United States without the threat of not being allowed to return. This is because the Trump administration ended advanced parole, the program that allowed DACA recipients to leave the country and return for humanitarian or educational reasons. Still, DACA has provided me with many opportunities, including serving my country during the pandemic. Therefore, this administration's irrational assault on the DACA program has been particularly cruel: it has left me, a health professional, with the constant threat of deportation, of which my face shield, mask, and hospital uniform did not they can protect me.
The dramatic loss of life due to covid-19 has caught my attention. A little over a year ago, I lost my mother to cancer. After years of working long hours at multiple underrated jobs to prepare me for success, my mother, who was undocumented, decided to return to Colombia. This was monumental because current immigration laws meant that he would face a 10-year ban on returning to the United States for having an "illegal presence" here.
As her illness progressed, I was forced to decide whether I should leave the country to say goodbye to her on her deathbed and risk not being able to return to the U.S., or stay in the only home I know of, the country that love. Trapped by the limitations of the DACA program, I made a decision that no one should have to make, not to be by my mother's side when she passed away.
When the coronavirus began to emerge in New York City, I was informed that our Emergency Department at Irving Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian / Columbia University was overwhelmed, and I was asked to lead an effort to help. Since then, I have operationalized the covid-19 tents located on the Columbia and Allen Hospital campus of NewYork-Presbyterian and have mobilized staff to evaluate and treat as many stable patients as possible outside of the ward room. emergencies.
With each new patient who entered covid-19 stores, I remembered my mother. She was a caregiver to anyone I knew, and I upheld her legacy, caring for my community when I needed it most.
To date, we have seen more than 1,000 patients in the Washington Heights community, mostly black and Latino individuals whose communities were most affected by the pandemic. It was extremely difficult to see people who looked so much like me. In minority communities like these, black and Latino New Yorkers have been dying at a significantly higher rate compared to white New Yorkers. To further underscore the health disparity, one of New York City's largest immigrant communities, East Elmhurst in Queens, accounted for the largest number of positive covid-19 cases in New York City.
I am a dreamer but, more importantly, I am an American. I faced a battle in the face of a pandemic to take care of my community and my country. My circumstances do not define who I am, but my actions do. I am proud to boast of being one of the more than 200,000 DACA recipients who are considered essential workers, with more than 43,000 working in healthcare. More than 200,000 people get up every day to make sure this country stays on its feet during the greatest public health crisis of the century. And despite everything, we have no idea if the next day our lives will be uprooted.
Waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court decision on the termination of DACA by the Trump administration was a daily reminder that I may have no choice but to stop helping my community, at any time.
On June 18, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration cannot immediately terminate DACA, meaning that some 650,000 current DACA recipients, including those 200,000 essential workers, may have a sigh of relief.
But today, none of my battles is over. We were successful in flattening the curve in New York City, but Americans are now seeing the virus emerge in full force across the country. In every affected city, in every overwhelmed community, there is a DACA recipient who stands up to meet the challenge. Despite this, the Supreme Court decision has left the door open to new challenges against DACA and the continuing threat of deportation, with the Trump administration still considering what's next for the DACA program.
Now more than ever, the fight against the covid-19 and the fight for the dreamers is one in which we cannot yield and we must prevail. I will continue to honor the sacrifices my mother made when she brought me to the United States at the age of six, and those of millions of other immigrants, fighting for the health and well-being of people in need.
This is for me to be an American.
DACA immigrants
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