UC San Francisco medical student joins DACA lawsuit against Trump administration

Six Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiaries filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Sept. 19 seeking to block federal officials from ending the program, The Los Angeles Times reports.

The plaintiffs filed the 46-page lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco after midnight. According to the lawsuit, the Trump administration's decision to end DACA "was motivated by unconstitutional bias against Mexicans and Latinos," The Los Angeles Times reports.

The federal DACA program, a 2012 Obama-era regulation, was created to shield the 800,000-plus immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation. It provides recipients with renewable two-year work permits. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration's intent to end the program within six months Sept. 5.

Jirayut Latthivongskorn, a fourth-year medical student at UC San Francisco School of Medicine and master's degree candidate at Boston-based Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said his DACA work authorization will expire in January 2018 — a few months before he planned to begin his medical residency, according to Reuters. If he loses his work authorization, it may be impossible for him to legally enter into a residency program, Reuters reports.

"I have all these big ideas about how I want to change the world and change systems around healthcare," Mr. Latthivongskorn told Reuters. "The fact I might not be able to get there is troubling and frustrating."

Mr. Latthivongskorn also claimed in the lawsuit he was rejected from several medical schools before the DACA program was enacted because "no medical school would invest their resources in training someone who might not be able to stay in the United States," according to The Harvard Crimson.

The five other "Dreamers" participating in the lawsuit include two middle school teachers, a formerly homeless lawyer, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology and a law student, according to The Harvard Crimson.

 

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