Puerto Rican student says CVS worker hassled him over immigration status

An engineering student in Indiana said he was blocked from buying over-the-counter cold medicine with his Puerto Rico driver’s license by a CVS employee who grilled him about his immigration status.

Jose Guzman Payano said he went to a CVS store in West Lafayette on Oct. 25 to pick Mucinex for congestion and a sore throat. But the junior at Purdue University ran into unexpected trouble when a clerk asked him to show ID at a self-service checkout.

Payano, who has lived in the college town since 2017, then pulled out his Puerto Rico ID, but the cashier was unmoved.

“She said I needed a visa,” Payano told the Lafayette Journal & Courier. “I tried to explain that Puerto Rico was part of the United States. I didn’t need a visa or anything. She just said the same thing three times.”

Payano proceeded to show the clerk his US passport, but he was still denied – this time because the clerk said she needed to verify his immigration status prior to the sale.

“That’s when I realized what was happening,” Payano told the newspaper. “It wasn’t worth talking anymore.”

A friend later took Payano to get the medicine at a supermarket, where he was carded but didn’t have to answer any other questions prior to the purchase, he said.

But the experience upset Payano so much that he left the pharmacy “with tears” in his eyes, he told WRTV.

“I feel like we’re always being treated as second-class citizens, especially when Puerto Ricans have to provide their licenses,” Payano said.

CVS reps, meanwhile, have apologized to Payano and his mother for the “isolated” incident, which will lead to a refresher for all of its employees, a CVS spokesperson said in a statement to The Post.

“We absolutely recognize Puerto Rican driver’s licenses to be a valid form of U.S. identification when purchasing products that require the use of ID,” the statement read.

Payano’s mother shared her son’s experience in a lengthy post on Facebook, saying he had no obligation to produce his passport after his Puerto Rican license was erroneously rejected.

“What caused this employee to ask him for his visa?” her post read. “Was it his accent? Was it his skin color? Was it the Puerto Rican flag on the license? Whatever triggered her to discriminate against my son embodies exactly what is wrong in the United States of America today.”

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