I’m a doctor in a public hospital in Oakland, California. My colleagues and I take care of the poor, the disadvantaged and the underserved. Like most Californians, we are nearly all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. And now one of us has been deported.



Maria Mendoza-Sanchez is a fully trained and qualified nurse. She moved to Oakland decades ago with her husband. They bought a house. They raised four kids. She worked here at Highland hospital for years taking care of the poor, the homeless, the uninsured, and patients who, like her and her husband, were undocumented.

She had never been convicted of a crime, and she and her husband had made every effort to obtain legal status to remain in the US. Maria was an asset to our patients, our hospital, our community, and our nation.

A goodbye visit by one of our junior doctors on her last night shift at Highland – just 72 hours before she was forced to return to Mexico, leaving behind three of her children – found her absorbed in comforting one of her patients who was nervously awaiting a critical procedure.

Despite her lawyer’s efforts, despite her rallying colleagues and friends, and despite the intervention of Senator Diane Feinstein, there was no last minute stay of deportation. There was no moment of clarity when somebody in authority realized that they had a moral responsibility to stop this cruel and pointless travesty.

Even before Maria was deported, we knew that our undocumented patients were avoiding the hospital. Many assumed that as a public institution protected by uniformed sheriff’s deputies, we probably worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

A Spanish-speaking doctor relayed the judgment of an undocumented community member who said: “I’d never go there – that’s like walking into a hornet’s nest.” The difference now is that before Maria was deported, I felt like I could reassure them.

After all, we’re a public hospital and our mission is to provide excellent care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay, their immigration status, or anything else. After what happened to Maria, they are asking: “If this woman, who was a professional nurse, and had a lawyer, and hadn’t done anything wrong, could be deported, how can you expect us to feel safe coming there?”

Maria’s deportation is the worst possible outcome of an immigration policy that is not about the “rapists” and “criminals” with whom Donald Trump threatened us during his campaign, but about racist and inaccurate definitions of what it means to be American.

Maria’s story makes it crystal clear that Trump’s immigration policy isn’t about keeping Americans safe; after all, it can’t even prioritize actual criminals over skilled healthcare workers who care for underserved patients. Rather, Trump’s policies pander to the worst impulses of a small segment of society who are afraid that a diverse America will leave no place for them.

Maria was torn from our community and left a void which many will feel for a long time, in many cases for their entire lives. Nobody feels this more acutely than the three American daughters she left behind.

Those of us who were her colleagues and her patients will miss her calm, compassionate competence. And I will miss the illusions I had about my community’s ability to protect our own when Trump’s minions come calling.

Martin Niemöller’s famous poem “First They Came…” has already been repeatedly and justly invoked in reference to Trump. “First they came for the Muslims,” read a memorable protest sign, “and we said not today.” All of us who are more interested in building and maintaining strong, healthy, and diverse communities than in satisfying petty hatreds and assuaging our insecurities had better take notice: they’re here, and they took Maria.