TALLAHASSEE, Florida — When Rachel started her job as a nurse in the internal medicine unit at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare last year, it felt like the realization of a dream that was years in the making.
A slight, soft-spoken Filipino woman, Rachel, 31, had spent her career working in hospitals across the Philippines, struggling to care for patients in the country’s under-resourced healthcare system. In the US, by contrast, she would have access to essential medicines, MRI machines—all the latest treatments and technologies modern medicine has to offer. She would also receive a coveted US green card, and be paid far more than she could make at home.
“I was excited,” Rachel said of the weeks before she boarded her flight to Tallahassee in August 2022. “It’s the US. It’s the most glamorous place.”
