JACUMBA SPRINGS, Calif. (Border Report) — Dr. Theresa Cheng is an emergency room doctor and a human rights attorney in Southern California.
Dr. Cheng is also on the board of directors for Border Kindness, providing food, water, and other necessities to asylum seekers at several campsites in the mountains east of San Diego.
“This is the type of place you would expect to find me anyway,” said Dr. Cheng.
For the past few months, when time allows, she’s been providing primary medical care to asylum seekers, anything from twisted ankles to sick babies.
She works out of a black SUV loaded with water and medical supplies.
“I’ve seen month-old infants, I’ve seen 75-year-old grandmothers, I’ve seen full families, I’ve seen people who have experienced strokes and are using a walker,” said Dr. Cheng.
Recently, she was called to help a 13-year-old boy who was brought to the border after being badly injured in a traffic accident in Mexico.
Unfortunately, the boy did not make it.
“He had traumatic injuries,” she said. “To see it in person and to have the loss of life of someone who had his whole future ahead of him is devastating.”
According to Dr. Cheng, helping the migrants is the right thing.
“People are extremely desperate due to whatever scenario happens in their home countries. They want a shot at a life full of safety and hope; that’s what America represents.”
And no matter the politics, Dr. Cheng believes that asylum seekers deserve all the help they can get.
“People out here are human beings, so there’s a narrative in the media, a narrative in the public mind that these people are criminals crossing the border, that these people are dangerous.”
And she says she’ll keep doing this because “she can’t sit still.”
Read: Read More