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Eli Kantor is a labor, employment and immigration law attorney. He has been practicing labor, employment and immigration law for more than 36 years. He has been featured in articles about labor, employment and immigration law in the L.A. Times, Business Week.com and Daily Variety. He is a regular columnist for the Daily Journal. Telephone (310)274-8216; eli@elikantorlaw.com. For more information, visit beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com and and beverlyhillsemploymentlaw.com

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Thursday, May 07, 2020

ICU doctor fighting coronavirus denied green card: 'It's like a slap in the face'

ICU doctor fighting coronavirus denied green card: 'It's like a slap in the face'
by J. Edward Moreno

ICU doctor fighting coronavirus denied green card: 'It's like a slap in the face'
A Canadian-born doctor treating U.S. coronavirus patients was denied permanent status as part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration amid the pandemic. 
“It’s heart-wrenching. I feel helpless,” Julia Iafrate, an intensive care unit doctor in New York, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday.
“I’m putting my life on the line every day to do this ... I’m honestly beside myself. It’s like a slap in the face,” Iafrate added. 
Iafrate is currently an assistant professor at Columbia University Medical Center. She has lived in the U.S. for 13 years, 10 of which were spent completing a residency program at the Mayo Clinic and a sports medicine fellowship at the University of Iowa before starting at Columbia three years ago. 
She is currently sponsored by the hospital she practices in but had her green card application denied last week. Iafrate is in the process of filing an appeal. 
"It's heart-wrenching ... I don't know what to do. I don't know what I could have done better," she says. "I don't know what I could have done any differently."
This week, a bipartisan Senate bill was introduced that would make it easier for doctors and nurses to obtain green cards.
"It is unacceptable that thousands of doctors currently working in the U.S. on temporary visas are stuck in the green card backlog, putting their futures in jeopardy and limiting their ability to contribute to the fight against COVID-19,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.
For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/

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