WASHINGTON, DC — FWD.us today released a new ad highlighting the critical contributions that DACA recipient healthcare workers are making to protect communities across the country in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The ad is the latest in a campaign to educate people across the country about what is at stake if the Trump Administration is allowed to terminate the DACA program. The Supreme Court is set to rule on the DACA case as early as later this month.

The ad features the story of Cesar Hernandez, a Chicago-based MD/PhD student at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, who is a DACA recipient training to join the healthcare workforce that is essential to the ongoing COVID-19 response.

“Being a doctor to me means being able to prevent suffering in others… if DACA were to go away, I would just not be able to continue for the foreseeable future. I wouldn’t be able to have a pathway to be able to get licensed as a physician or find employment,” Hernandez says in the ad. “DACA… has been life-changing for me, and for hundreds of thousands of people. It has created undocumented teachers, lawyers, and physicians… no matter what happens, I want to keep working hard, because home is here.”

More than 200,000 DACA recipients are serving as essential workers in the midst of the coronavirus crisis in vital roles such as grocery and food service, sanitation, and supply chain logistics. These essential workers also include nearly 30,000 DACA recipients working in healthcare on the frontlines helping our communities survive this crisis.