nurse

Since launching at the start of 2025, “The Pitt” has emerged as more than just a hyperrealistic depiction of an embattled American emergency department. Using its hospital setting as a social microcosm, HBO Max’s Emmy-winning juggernaut has explored various systemic issues — including the misogyny that women of color face in the workplace.

“Some of the stories from real physicians and nurses that I’ve spoken to are so crazy. The system feels like it’s 15, 20 years behind other industries,” says Sepideh Moafi, who portrays attending Dr. Baran Al-Hashimi. “There is still this older culture of a boundaryless style of work where [there’s] a lack of understanding and compassion,” with respect to pregnancy and childcare, for working women.

“The Pitt’s” depiction of such subjects includes unflinching attention to microaggressions and unconscious biases. Isa Briones, who plays second-year resident Dr. Trinity Santos, recalls hearing from qualified on-set doctors that “a lot of female physicians will wear their lab coats, because it makes them look like more of an authority.”

“We have a female, half-Asian doctor on our set who consistently says that people talk to the nurse in the room if they’re a white man instead of her,” adds Supriya Ganesh, whose character, fourth-year resident Dr. Samira Mohan, is mistaken for a nurse in Season 2, despite having “DOCTOR” emblazoned on her name tag.

Supriya Ganesh.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Nor is the series reluctant to show the other side of the dynamic, as doctors Robinavitch (Noah Wyle) and Langdon (Patrick Ball) lash out against their colleagues in lieu of acknowledging their own flaws. Although the women of “The Pitt” would never compare acting to saving lives, Briones believes that the experiences of women — especially from marginalized communities — share commonalities across many male-dominated industries.

“The entertainment business constantly feels like a boys’ club that you cannot penetrate no matter what you do, because it’s still always going to be these older white men who are making all the decisions,” she says. “That’s why seeing the storyline with Langdon and Robby informed my performance so much, because I know this feeling of being like, ‘Why the f— are these men fist-bumping each other? I’m also here! I’m doing my job too!’”

“As a woman in any field, if you express emotion, if you make your opinion or your voice heard, then it’s like, ‘You’re talking too much. You’re being hysterical,’” Moafi says.

Sepideh Moafi.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

In holding up a mirror to the healthcare system, showrunner R. Scott Gemmill also wanted to explore the linguistic diversity of its practitioners, allowing his actors of color to reconnect with their mother tongues.

“Language shapes who you are, how you see the world,” Moafi says. Al-Hashimi became a polyglot — speaking English, Farsi and Armenian — in part to curb the effects of a seizure disorder on her temporal lobe, which is crucial for language comprehension. “[Language] connects you to different registers in the body. The rhythms are different, and the emotional access is more immediate.”

During Season 1, Santos — who, like Briones, is half-Filipino — surprised nurses Princess (Kristin Villanueva) and Perlah (Amielynn Abellera) by chiming in on their gossip session in Tagalog. But wanting to show “a more vulnerable side of Santos” this season, Briones worked with her own actor father, Jon Jon, to find a Filipino lullaby that she could sing to baby Jane Doe.

To reflect the 100-plus languages spoken in the Philippines, they selected a Hiligaynon lullaby called “Ili Ili Tulog Anay.” Briones advocated for the scene not to have subtitles: “It should be just this quiet moment that you don’t have to understand [the language] to understand, but also it’s a great moment for people who do speak it to feel that little secret joy.”

For Briones, speaking Tagalog at work has opened up difficult conversations with her immigrant father, who feels shame about not passing down enough cultural knowledge to his children. “I’ve been starting with Rosetta Stone, so I can start conversing with my dad and then he can help me, because I want to be able to talk to my lola and she doesn’t have to work through English,” she says. “This show has reminded me of how important that is to me.”

Isa Briones.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Ganesh, who grew up in New Delhi, felt strongly that Mohan should not be fluent in Hindi because of its similarities to Nepali, the language that doctors struggled to identify when treating a patient in the first season. Instead, the actor chose to infuse her own heritage into the character, who uses Tamil as a way to feel connected to her late father.

“She chooses to speak it with her mom, because maybe that’s the only other person she has in her life who she can speak it to,” explains Ganesh, who recalls consulting multiple generations of her own family — and even her on-set coach’s family — for the Tamil dialogue. “She wants to preserve that as much as she can, even though it’s already filtered through her being American and being born in this country.”

That part of Indian American culture will be lost next season, with Ganesh officially departing at the end of Season 2. The actor reiterates that the “creative decision” to write Mohan off was made by executive producers Gemmill, Wyle and John Wells: “They work with such intention on the show and make all the choices that they make for that reason, so I think it’s better to ask them for answers.”

“I’m going to treasure all the memories I had working with these two and everyone else,” Ganesh adds. “It’s been so great just getting all the love from the fans. I feel sad for them, too, that they won’t get to see this character.”

“The representation that you brought to the show is so beautiful,” Briones chimes in. “Seeing the fans ride for you so hard and be like, ‘This was the first time I felt represented on camera,’ it’s really gorgeous to see everyone coming out and celebrating that and celebrating you.”

For her part, Moafi believes that Dr. Mohan will be remembered for the way “she won’t compromise humanity in how she delivers care.” “The power of strength comes from vulnerability, and in order to go fast, you have to slow down,” she adds. “That’s something that is so ingrained in us, as women.”

After their work permits expired, an immigration attorney near San Diego was fired and a nurse in the East Bay area was placed on unpaid leave.

Both depend on work permits and legal protection afforded under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program created by President Obama in 2012 for immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. But recent processing delays at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are leaving many DACA recipients vulnerable to arrest and deportation as their two-year work permits expire.

“It’s definitely an attack on the program,” said the lawyer, Maria Fernanda Madrigal. “My first thought was, ‘Oh, they’re so clever. They weren’t able to end the program through the courts, so this is what they’re doing.’”

Over the last several years, median processing times for DACA renewals remained under two months. Now, most cases are finished within 3.5 months, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The agency did not explain what’s causing the processing delays. Spokesperson Zach Kahler wrote in a statement that “under the leadership of President Trump, USCIS is safeguarding the American people by more thoroughly screening and vetting all aliens.”

DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country, he said.

During his first term in office, Trump tried unsuccessfully to rescind DACA.

This time around, his administration has simply weakened its benefits.

Last year, Department of Homeland Security officials started urging DACA recipients to self-deport. The Department of Health and Human Services made DACA recipients ineligible for health insurance through Obamacare.

And last month, a precedent-setting decision from the Board of Immigration Appeals, which will apply to immigration judges across the country, said having DACA is not enough to protect someone from deportation.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said ICE arrested 650 DACA recipients between Jan. 20, 2025, and April 30, nearly 90% of whom had been charged with or convicted of a crime. The spokesperson did not say how many have been deported.

DACA recipient Javier Diaz, center, is welcomed by his neighbors including Martha Avelar, right, in South Los Angeles after returning home from a detention center in Texas in July 2025.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

But in a February letter to U.S. senators, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the agency had deported 86 DACA recipients between Jan. 1 and Nov. 19, 2025. Federal judges have ordered the agency to return some, including Maria de Jesus Estrada Juarez, a Sacramento mother who was deported a day after her green card interview.

Lawmakers are expressing alarm that DACA’s promise of protection is being undermined.

Last month, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee held a forum on the Trump administration’s “all-out assault on DACA.” The forum featured Santa Ana Police Chief Robert Rodriguez, who testified that he had been forced to fire a police officer because their work permit renewal was not processed on time.

Last week, members of the House from California’s Central Valley, including Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), sent a letter to Homeland Security and Citizenship and Immigration Services leaders, urging them to expedite DACA processing.

“Our offices have seen a substantial increase in constituent cases involving pending renewals, with many remaining unresolved for more than six months,” the letter continued. “These extended processing times are creating avoidable hardships for our communities and our economy.”

California has more than a quarter of the nation’s approximately 500,000 DACA recipients, according to Citizenship and Immigration Services figures. On average, they are 31 years old.

To qualify for DACA, applicants had to pass background checks and meet certain educational or work requirements.

During a news conference ahead of the DACA forum last month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) reflected on the day in June 2012 when DACA applications first opened. He said parents of young immigrants asked him if it was safe for their children to sign up for the program, which required admitting their lack of legal status and home address.

“Are you sure that the government won’t use that information against us at some time?” he remembered them saying. “I said, ‘Follow the law exactly as it is written and announced in the executive order, and we’ll stand by you. Just believe in us to do that.’”

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), foreground, speaks during a Homeland Security oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

“Well, I didn’t anticipate the current president and what he is now doing,” Durbin continued.

Sarah Krieger, a former Citizenship and Immigration Services official who is now senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, said processing delays were caused, in part, by the agency temporarily pausing an automated system for processing DACA and other applications.

Krieger said that “streamlined case processing” was turned off about a month after Trump took office last year, in order to audit whether each process had sufficient security checks. The automated system was turned back on a couple of months later but was modified to include more manual security checks. Krieger left the agency last July.

Turning off the automated system was “a purposeful choice that doesn’t increase national security,” she said. “All it does is slow things down.”

Citizenship and Immigration Services recommends that applicants submit their paperwork and pay the $555 fee between 120 and 150 days before their benefits expire.

Among those who did so are two nurses who work for Kaiser Permanente in the Bay Area. Both requested anonymity out of concern over their immigration status.

One of the nurses, who came to the U.S. from the Philippines as a toddler, said she applied for renewal on Dec. 1. Her work authorization expired April 15.

Kaiser placed her on a 30-day unpaid leave of absence, after which she would be fired. Eventually, her work permit was renewed, but only after Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and two other members of Congress lobbied the federal government on her behalf.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) speaks during a news conference on the DACA program on May 12 outside the U.S. Capitol.

(Graeme Sloan / Getty Images)

Padilla said his office has fielded requests from hundreds of DACA recipients this year.

Another Kaiser nurse, who also submitted her renewal paperwork in December, is still waiting. She has been on unpaid leave for nearly a month.

The nurse, who is from South America, said one Citizenship and Immigration Services officer told her it could take up to 10 months for her renewal to be processed.

The nurse is pregnant and she and her husband just bought a house. Losing her job would mean losing her healthcare and maternity leave benefits.

“I’ve spent years caring for others in my community, paying taxes, contributing to a healthcare system,” she said. “I worked through COVID and it’s heartbreaking to feel like you’re so easily discarded.”

Another DACA recipient, Elsa Sanchez, 35, of Georgia has maintained DACA status since 2012 and says she always follows the recommendation to submit the renewal application at least 120 days before the expiration date.

For the last three renewals, she said, she was approved within a week or two. This time, her work permit and DACA expired on April 1, more than four months after she submitted her application.

Elsa Sanchez, whose work permit expired because of DACA renewal delays, at her home in Atlanta.

(Emilie Megnien / Associated Press)

The healthcare IT company where Sanchez works as a senior customer success manager allowed her to take a 60-day unpaid leave of absence but said it would have to terminate her employment afterward.

Sanchez’s unpaid leave was set to run out on June 1. On May 20, she got notice that her DACA renewal had finally been approved. But by then Sanchez, a single mom, had had to pull funds out of the college savings account for her 19-year-old daughter, who is attending a local university. She put the money toward her nearly $2,000 rent and food.

“I feel so relieved and grateful,” she said in an Instagram video announcing the news. “I know that a lot of us are still being affected by these delays. I wish that I could share my approval with all of you and that we would all be celebrating today.”

Others have also turned to social media to share their experiences and swap resources. Madrigal, the fired attorney, pivoted to making daily videos. On Tuesday, she shared “day 35 of unemployment.”

“Some days look like big emotions and uncertainty,” she wrote. “Other days look like walks, toddler activities, cooking dinner and ending the night with tostadas. Trying to find joy and normalcy in the middle of it all.”

California and a coalition of other Democratic-led states are suing the Trump administration over new limits on federal borrowing by aspiring nurses, physician’s assistants, therapists, social workers, mental health practitioners and other healthcare workers, arguing the changes will further reduce a struggling but vital workforce.

“This case is about protecting access to education, protecting our healthcare workforce, and protecting patients who rely on these providers every single day,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said during a virtual news conference Tuesday. “The Trump administration is going out of its way to make it harder and more expensive for students to pursue the advanced degrees necessary to serve their communities and pursue meaningful careers that allow them to support themselves and their families.”

Bonta said the new limits on loans sought by nursing and other healthcare students — which the U.S. Department of Education initiated in response to Republicans passing broader student loan caps as part of last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — was an illegal overreach by the agency that was “deeply shortsighted” and went beyond the scope of the legislation.

“Congress can act,” he said. “But what the Department of Education can’t do is — contrary to law and in an arbitrary and capricious way and in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act — redefine what a professional student is.”

In response to the litigation, Trump administration officials defended the new rules, saying they will help student borrowers in the long run by driving down schooling costs at universities nationwide and preventing them from taking on too much debt.

“After decades of unchecked student loan borrowing that gave schools no reason to control costs, these commonsense loan caps — created by Congress — are already incentivizing colleges and universities to lower tuition,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement to The Times.

Kent said Bonta and his fellow Democratic litigants “are more concerned about institutions’ bottom-line [than] American students and families’ ability to access affordable postsecondary education.” As one example of institutions responding to loan caps by lowering costs, Kent pointed to UC Irvine reducing the costs of its master’s in business programs by up to 38% to keep them below a federal loan cap for such programs.

The One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by Congress in July 2025, placed new limits on student loans, which could previously be sought for the full cost of such degrees. Starting this July, applicants categorized as “graduate students” will be capped at borrowing $20,500 per year and $100,000 in total, while applicants categorized as “professional students” will be allowed to borrow up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 in total.

On May 1, the U.S. Department of Education issued a new rule defining the “professional student” category as including those pursuing degrees to become doctors, pharmacists, dentists, veterinarians, lawyers, various medical specialists, pastors and other religious academics, and excluding those pursuing nursing and other advanced healthcare degrees.

In announcing the change, Kent said it would “simplify our complex student loan repayment system and better align higher education with workforce needs,” “drive a sea change in higher education by holding universities accountable for outcomes and putting significant downward pressure on the cost of tuition,” and “benefit borrowers who will no longer be pushed into insurmountable debt to finance degrees that do not pay off.”

Others fiercely disagreed, including healthcare industry leaders who also had objected to the rule change during a public comment period. Some said the changes would simply increase student reliance on less favorable, private-sector loans.

The American Assn. of Colleges of Nursing, in a statement, said it and its members were “angered by the Department of Education’s failure to support the nursing profession as the demand for patient care services rises.”

Nearly 150 members of Congress — including more than a dozen Republicans — wrote a letter the day after the rule was promulgated expressing “disappointment” over the exclusion of post-baccalaureate nursing degrees.

“At a time when our nation is facing a health care shortage, especially in primary care, now is not the time to cut off the student pipeline to these programs,” the lawmakers argued.

Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the University of California, which is not party to the lawsuit but operates a vast network of public health programs, said in a statement Tuesday that UC “strongly opposed” the administration’s new caps on federal loans for nurses and other health professionals, which she said “will be felt most strongly by lower-income graduate students.”

“UC will continue to do all we can to ensure that cost is not a barrier for anyone who wants to pursue higher education, and we will continue to advocate with our federal partners for the programs and policies that make this possible,” Zaentz said.

Bonta rejected the administration’s argument that the new caps would help students pursuing a dream of a medical career avoid taking on too much debt — calling it “tone deaf.” He said those students are already “struggling with all costs right now” thanks to the Trump administration’s tariffs, war in Iran and lax approach to regulating monopolies and other big business.

He also rejected the idea that the new loan caps would force institutions to reduce costs for students, calling that “wishful thinking.”

The lawsuit is the 68th filed by Bonta’s office against the second Trump administration. Joining Bonta in the lawsuit — which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Maryland — were the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Times staff writer Jaweed Kaleem contributed to this report.