Washington, D.C. — On the 14th anniversary of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a new Center for American Progress report reveals how DACA recipients are providing vital front-line medical care as nurses to American communities amid the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation efforts and a confusing patchwork of state licensing restrictions on nurses with DACA.
This report features the inspiring experiences of three registered nurses with DACA—Alondra, Jazmine, and Ingrid—who continue to persevere in a difficult job that helps save lives while the Trump administration has doubled down on telling DACA recipients to deport themselves.
An estimated 34,000 DACA recipients work across the health care sector, and roughly 3,400 serve as registered nurses. An estimate from the Health Resources and Services Administration showed that the United States faces a severe shortage of 263,870 registered nurses in 2026 and projected a registered nursing shortage for more than a decade. Despite the severe nursing shortage and need for DACA health care professionals to fill critical vacancies, the administration has persisted in its efforts to dismantle DACA protections, restrict higher education access for undocumented students, and threaten deportation.
Through interviews with three nurses who have DACA, the report found they are:
- Helping ease the nursing shortage.
- Bringing language diversity to patient care, which improves the quality of care.
- Bridging communities together.
To safeguard the U.S. health care system and protect the front-line workers sustaining it, the report outlines critical federal and state actions:
- Pass a federal pathway to citizenship. Congress must immediately pass long-overdue legislation, such as the American Dream and Promise Act or the Dream Act, to provide permanent stability for Dreamers.
- Expand state licensing policies. State legislatures must remove barriers that bar DACA recipients from obtaining their professional license and enact laws—similar to Missouri’s proposed H.B. 2518—authorizing DACA recipients who pass professional exams to obtain professional licenses, including nursing licenses.
- Protect higher education equity. States and federal policymakers must fund pathways to nursing degrees and robustly defend access to in-state tuition and financial aid for DACA students against federal litigation.
“We are looking at a terrifying intersection where a growing nursing shortage meets the threat of deportation,” said Rosa Barrientos-Ferrer, senior policy analyst for Immigration Policy at CAP. “Nurses such as Alondra, Jazmine, and Ingrid are not just statistics—they are linguistic lifelines, cultural bridges, and the backbone of community hospitals. Barring them from professional licensure in their home states and threatening them with removal is also a direct threat to the health and well-being of Americans. Policymakers must act immediately to clear these arbitrary barriers to patient care and provide a permanent pathway to citizenship.”
Read the report: “America Is Running Out of Nurses, and DACA Recipients Are Helping Provide Critical Care to Communities Despite Threats of Deportation From the Trump Administration” by Rosa Barrientos-Ferrer
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, please contact Rafael Medina at [email protected].