What My Cancer Surgery Taught Me About Immigration

Wheeled into the operating room last January, staring up at the massive arms of the robot with which a surgeon would remove my cancerous gland, I was hit with an unusual realization: I owe a debt of gratitude to President Lyndon Johnson and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

Why? Without that legislation, the surgeon who operated on me probably wouldn’t be here. Nor might the doctor who pioneered the procedure. Nor the philanthropist who financed the research. Nor many workers at the company that makes these robots or those at a different company that designed the chips that enable the robot.

As my ordeal with cancer shows, immigration has become critical to our health. Immigrants account for more than a quarter of physicians, surgeons and personal care aides and about a fifth of nursing assistants.

I’m not sure we realize that immigrants help keep us alive: Just look at West Virginia, a state hostile to immigration where aging residents have died before getting off the wait list for home health aides.

While many Americans — including politicians this election year — dwell on stories like the Venezuelan migrant accused of killing a Georgia nursing student, they often forget the critical ways immigration has historically benefited us. A century ago this spring, the United States slammed the door on large sections of the world, and we could be on the verge of doing so again.

That I am so cognizant of the importance of immigrants is the result of two coincidences. The first is that I teach a class on practical writing at Stanford Business School. Frustrated by the cynicism that has pervaded my 3,000 students, many of whom were only teenagers when Donald Trump was elected and are skeptical of the government, I began showing a slide documenting the benefits they enjoy from legislation that originated in the 1960s. For one, many Stanford Business School students — I would guess roughly a quarter — come from families that would not be in this country if not for Mr. Johnson’s Immigration and Nationality Act.