Dept. of Homeland Security denies Oakland nurse's request to stay

OAKLAND, Calif. (Allie Rasmus/KTVU) - The Department of Homeland Security denied a request by an Oakland nurse and her family to stay in the Bay Area, and they have now have plans to board a plane back to Mexico on Wednesday shortly before midnight.

Carl Shusterman, the attorney for Highland Hospital nurse Maria Mendoza-Sanchez , her husband and Eusebio  and their 12-year-old son, told KTVU on Wednesday that DHS denied the family’s “stay of deportation” at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday. The couple came to the country illegally in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, but they argue that they are model, hard-working citizens and should be allowed to stay.

The family, who has three daughters who plan to stay in the Bay Area, has been lobbying Sen. Diane Feinstein for help. Shusterman said Feinstein called Maria on Tuesday and told her she had tried to intervene with DHS to allow her to stay, to no avail.

Shusterman said that Feinstein still plans to sponsor a private bill on Sept. 5 to keep the family together and living in Oakland with green cards. In the past, ICE has honored these private bills, Shusterman said. But he and the family are not optimistic about the Sanchez family being able to come back, because that bill would have to be passed by the House and the Senate and signed into law by President Trump.

As of Wednesday morning, the Sanchez family had a flight booked at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday at United Airlines out of San Francisco International Airport.