Thread: Healthcare workers rally to halt Oakland nurse’s deportation

Healthcare workers rally to halt Oakland nurse’s deportation


Maria Sanchez, an undocumented oncology nurse at Highland Hospital talks to media outside
the hospital where supporter and co-workers gather to denounce the deportation of her and
her husband Eusebio Sanchez in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. Maria and Eusebio
Sanchez Oakland parents and US residents for over two decades are being deported back to
Mexico leaving behind three of their four children. (Laura A. Oda/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND — Health care workers and other community members are rallying at noon Monday in front of Highland Hospital to demand that U.S. immigration officials halt the imminent deportation of registered nurse Maria Sanchez and her husband on Tuesday. The couple, who moved to the Bay Area in the early 1990s from a small town in Mexico, are undocumented immigrants.

But for more than two decades, they say, they have worked hard to embrace the American Dream, and deserve to stay.

Maria, 46, rose from being a housekeeper at an East Bay nursing home to become a registered nurse at Highland Hospital today, caring for patients with cancer, heart, and kidney disease.

Her husband Eusebio, who turned 48 on Monday, graduated from construction jobs to become a full-time truck-driver for the last 12 years. They paid taxes, obeyed the law, and sent two of their four children to college.

Yet after years of trying to obtain green cards to stay in the U.S. legally, their requests denied by immigration judges, then overturned through appeals, their luck finally ran out in May when an immigration officer gave them 90 days to exit.

Carl Shusterman, the Sanchez family’s attorney, on Monday said their best hope is U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who last week called on the federal government to reverse the impending deportation, which she called “the cruel and arbitrary nature of President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice last week said that over the last 15 years, the Sanchez’s immigration case has undergone exhaustive review at multiple levels of the Department of Justice’s immigration court system, which is administered by the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

“The courts,” said Kice, “have consistently held that neither of these individuals has a legal basis to remain in the U.S.,” and had already granted them stays of removal.

“This administration is committed to the rule of law and to enforcing the laws established by Congress,’’ she said. “When we fail to enforce those laws, what message are we sending to the millions of people who respect that process and are waiting outside the U.S. now for visas that will enable them to enter the country lawfully?”

But John Pearson, a fellow nurse at Highland Hospital, called the ICE priorities “misguided.”

“It’s shameful that ICE is ripping her away from her family, her home, and the patients who need her,” he said in a statement.

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/1...s-deportation/

How is an illegal alien working as an Oncology nurse in a hospital?

Isn't she supposed to be in a field picking vegetables?

The hospital knowingly violated numerous Federal Immigration laws by employing an illegal alien
to administer illegal medical care to cancer patients.

Clearly, the hospital was more concerned with pandering to the illegal alien then they
were concerned about the medical care of patients.

Federal authorities need to immediately take action and open a criminal investigation and
hold these people accountable.

Fine the Hospital and DEPORT her.

Go work as a Nurse on your soil!

“The courts,” said Kice, “have consistently held that neither of these individuals has a legal basis to remain in the U.S.,” and had already granted them stays of removal. Enough said! LEAVE

Oakland Immigrant Family Hours From Deportation

August 15, 2017 8:34 AM

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) — The nightmare separation of an Oakland family was hours away Tuesday as the clock ticked down to the deportation of a couple who have lived in the United States for 23 years.

Maria Mendoza-Sanchez, who works as a nurse at Highland Hospital taking care of cancer patients and her husband, Eusebio, have been ordered to leave the country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

And despite the intervention of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and others and a direct plea to President Donald Trump, the couple appears to be heading toward departing on Tuesday.

“It is a very difficult situation. I put up a very long fight,” Mendoza-Sanchez said last week.

“I help hospitals bring in foreign nurses because we have a huge shortage of nurses,” said the family’s immigration attorney Carl Shusterman. “One thing we have not been able to do in all these years is bring in bilingual nurses who speak Spanish and English. It’s really hard to get nurses from Mexico into the U.S., and here we have one with a four-year degree.”

Mendoza-Sanchez and her husband entered the country illegally over two decades ago and have four children. Three of those children are U.S. citizens.

Eusebio came to the United States in 1989. Maria followed him in 1992. He became a truck driver and she became a nurse. Over the next 25 years they bought a home, built a life and raised a family in the U.S., but now won’t be able to come back for the next decade.

“Somebody who’s deported and who has over a year of unlawful presence is banned from coming back for 10 years,” Shusterman said.

They are taking their youngest with them back to Mexico, but leaving the rest of their family behind.

They are placing their eldest daughter — 23-year-old UC Santa Cruz graduate Vianney Sanchez — in charge of her two younger sisters.

“This administration says they want good people and that is who my family is,” said a tearful Vianney. “They don’t want ‘bad hombres’ and my parents have never, ever done anything, no criminal convictions.” But Sanchez’s immigration status is also in jeopardy.

She is in the United States protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, something President Trump has threatened to take away.

“And I always thought that everything was going to turn out alright and they wouldn’t have to leave, because I don’t … they’ve done nothing wrong,” said daughter Melin Sanchez, who is a senior at UC Santa Cruz studying biology.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/08/15/oakland-immigrant-family-hours-from-deportation/

They are placing their eldest daughter — 23-year-old UC Santa Cruz graduate Vianney Sanchez — in charge of her two younger sisters. She's Under DACA, they should ALL be deported! The oldest got a free education, she should take her degree and go with the parents. If the 2 younger ones are anchors they can come back when they're 18, but they belong with their parents!

BOO HOO...another SOB story like the millions before her!

Nothing stopping you from taking your WHOLE family. Send your kid to college in Mexico.

ENGLISH ONLY...no need for FOREIGN nurses!

Nurse and family facing deportation stay in Oakland, at least one more day


POSTED: AUG 15 2017 06:20AM PDT
UPDATED: AUG 15 2017 01:27PM PDT

OAKLAND, Calif. (Allie Rasmus/KTVU) - An Oakland nurse and her family did not hop on a plane back to Mexico on Tuesday and are looking into two more legal options to help them stay in the Bay Area.

Hours before the family was supposed to board a 1 p.m. flight at San Francisco International Airport, Maria and Eusebio Mendoza-Sanchez and their son decided to file a deportation stay at 12:01 p.m. Wednesday, one minute after their time officially runs out on U.S. soil, explained their lawyer, Carl Shusterman. They were told they were not allowed to file a stay before that.

"I just talked to Maria," Shusterman said. "She's happy. She says, 'Every day is good. I get one more day with my family.'"


It's unclear what will happen after one more day, Shusterman said, and so the Sanchez family also has a plane ticket for Wednesday, just in case that legal option doesn't work.

At the same time, U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein told Shusterman that she plans to sponsor a private bill on Sept. 5 to keep the family together and living in Oakland with green cards. In the past, ICE has honored these private bills, Shusterman said. But he and the family are not so hopeful under the new Trump administration, which sent a memo earlier this year, saying these private pleas would be left up to the immigration agency's discretion.

"I'm curious to see if that memo is going to change things," Shusterman said. "The agency has a lot of discretion...[a private bill] doesn't mean they don't have the discretion to deport her anyway."

The two came illegally, Shusterman said, but are “good people” who should be allowed to stay.



On Monday, there were more than 100 people rallying outside Highland Hospital, where Maria has worked in the oncology department for many years. Her husband has been a truck driver in the United States since 1989.

At the rally, Maria picked up a megaphone and said that immigrants "deserve a chance to be here. We are not doing anything. We are working. We are treating people with respect."

Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf weighed in Tuesday on the Trump administration's effort to deport the family, saying in part: "Maria represents the best of Oakland. A dedicated registered nurse at Highland Hospital who has cared for our residents in their most vulnerable moments, as well as a loving wife and mother of four children. She and Eusebio epitomize the Oakland spirit; they are devoted members of our community, proud parents of highly accomplished students, and we honor and support their family as they face this life changing moment.

“As mayor of Oakland, I believe in keeping families together. I stand with Dianne Feinstein in calling on the federal government to reverse this impending deportation. The Trump administration’s arbitrary and cruel enforcement of immigration policies tears families apart."

The couple will possibly have to leave behind three daughters, who have legal standing in the U.S. Their youngest, a 12-year-old, is poised to return to Mexico with them.

http://www.ktvu.com/news/273927693-story

Nurse and family facing deportation stay in Oakland, at least one more day

How did this happen? I thought they had already exhausted all possibility of legal remedy and had been given a specific deadline for deportation. I know you can get a stay if you're in the appeals process, but I thought they had already been through all of that. ICE should have had taken the couple into custody and deported them on the date they were ordered deported.

11th-hour plea denied as Oakland nurse and husband prepare for deportation

By Hamed Aleaziz
Updated 9:10 pm, Tuesday, August 15, 2017

• 

Photo: Mason Trinca, Special To The Chronicle
Maria Mendoza-Sanchez comforts her daughters, Melin Sanchez, 21, and Elizabeth Sanchez, 16, at Highland Hospital in Oakland on Monday, August 14, 2017.

When Oakland nurse Maria Mendoza-Sanchez noticed an incoming call Tuesday afternoon from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the mother of four waved her family into her bedroom and put the phone on speaker.

She knew there was a chance, albeit a small one, that she would receive an 11th-hour piece of good news — one that would spare her from having to split up her family by moving to her native Mexico with her husband and youngest child Wednesday under a federal deportation order.

But Feinstein, D-Calif., told Mendoza-Sanchez, as she stood surrounded by loved ones, that immigration authorities had denied the request for a stay for her and her husband, who have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades but do not have legal status.

“She said she was sorry she couldn’t do anything,” Mendoza-Sanchez said.

The room fell quiet.

“I’m already tired of fighting, fighting, fighting,” she said.

“What can I do? I did everything I could and I’m exhausted.

This has been a battle that took everything out of me.”

The couple and their 12-year-old son, Jesus, who is a U.S. citizen by birth, will catch a flight to Mexico City Wednesday evening — a flight they had pushed back one day in hopes of winning a late reprieve from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE.

They will start a new life while leaving behind daughters, ages 16, 21 and 23. The plan is for the older girls to raise the youngest, seeing her through two more years of high school.

The family’s attorney, Carl Shusterman, said Tuesday’s denial of the stay request, which had been filed Friday, was a “tragedy.” He said ICE officials had indicated they “couldn’t make an exception for her. If they did, they would have to make an exception for other people, too.”

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...t-11820799.php