Gina Rodriguez Is Producing Immigration Dramas for CBS and CW

Gina Rodriguez Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images

Soon, immigrant stories won’t just be a part of the terrifying political news cycle. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gina Rodriguez has sold a pair of TV dramas through her production company, I Can & I Will, about immigrants from Latin America, to CBS and CW. The series bound for CBS is called Mercy, and it’s an adaptation of Germany’s Dr. Illegal. It follows a Latina doctor who moves to Miami, but is barred from practicing, and after working for some time as a nurse’s assistant, decides to operate outside the law by opening a clinic in her apartment to serve the community.

For the CW, Rodriguez will share executive-producing duties on the new series Illegal (which has no connection to the aforementioned Dr. Illegal) with Jane the Virgin scribe Rafael Agustin, who will also write. The hour-long teen drama centers on a 16-year-old honor-roll student named Raphael who suddenly learns he’s not an American citizen. His fictional story is particularly timely with the Trump administration’s decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allowed young men and women who came into America illegally as children to stay in the country on two-year work permits.

Gina Rodriguez Is Producing Immigration Dramas for CBS & CW