Hospital staff want ICE out of hospitals: 'It is a threat to public health'

[cbabe]

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2026-02-23/hospital-staff-want-ice-out-of-hospitals-it-is-a-threat-to-public-health.html

Hospital staff want ICE out of hospitals: ‘It is a threat to public health’

(NY to CA)

PATRICIA CARO
Washington - FEB 23, 2026 - 06:33 EST

Workers say federal agents have detained people as they arrived at emergency rooms, entered areas reserved for patients, and prevented nurses from attending to those in need

In the 44 years that Dianne Sposito has worked as a nurse, she had never before had to confront authorities in order to do her job. That changed last December, when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prevented her from attending to a patient who arrived at the emergency room of UCLA’s Ronald Reagan Medical Center in Los Angeles, where she works. The patient, a migrant woman, was screaming from the gurney on which paramedics had brought her in, and Sposito rushed to help — only to be stopped by two ICE agents who blocked her path.

…

“I thought they were paramedics because it was completely dark, but when they turned around I saw the masks they were wearing and the goggles, and I knew they were from ICE, even though they weren’t carrying identification,” Sposito recalls. “They were armed. I asked them who they were, and they replied, ‘You don’t need to know.’ Then I asked them if they had a warrant, and they said they didn’t need one. I wanted to take the woman’s vital signs, and they told me, ‘Take your hands off her,’” the nurse says.

…

Sandra, who has worked as a nurse for 25 years and is assigned to the intensive care unit, recounts several cases she has heard from colleagues in which patients were put at risk. In one case, the patient needed urgent care, but agents would not allow staff to contact the family. “It is very important that the family is involved in the patient’s treatment because the doctors and nurses need to know the medical history to decide on the treatment,” she says. In another case, a patient with high blood pressure avoided going to the ER for fear of encountering ICE, and by the time he finally went, his condition was critical.

…

Faced with this situation, NNU plans to continue protesting. Sandra admits she feels some fear about what could happen to her for participating, but she has no intention of stopping. “It’s risky because ICE doesn’t just investigate undocumented people — they also go after people who help them. But this is not the time to stay silent, because what ICE is doing is inhumane. This is how the Nazis started: ordinary people in Germany said, ‘It doesn’t affect me,’ and they didn’t speak up until things got worse. I have to do my part and not stay silent,” she says.

//

[newdeal2]

1. Horrible people

We have to stop this madness.

[Norrrm]

2. It is much, much safer to arrest sick people than attack armed MS13.

[justaprogressive]

3. OFFS!

Now ERs need POLICE OFFICERS to block ICE goons from entering the hospital

[cbabe]

4. If hospital admins will back the staff and patients...

From link:

The nurses say they want, at the very least, hospital administrators or Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which owns the hospital, to clarify what the policies and procedures are for ICE agents, especially when there’s a disagreement between the agents and the frontline care staff.

…

“We also provide ongoing guidance and training for our employees on patient rights [and] privacy,” the statement added.

But the nurse who spoke to KUOW on condition of anonymity said she’s received no response to her multiple requests for protocols and guidance from St. Joseph’s administrators.

“We have a policy for everything, but they refuse to put anything out on this,” she said. “They won’t even acknowledge it.”

… Catholic hospital …)

[justaprogressive]

5. The administrators

should watch "The Pitt"!

[Jilly_in_VA]

6. ICE also restrains patients

in defiance of hospital policy. Hospital policy, in every single hospital I hve ever worked in, states that a patient must have a doctor's order to be restrained; that that doctor must physically lay eyes on that patient once every 24 hours and renew that order every 24 hours; and that a staff member must physically check on that patient every 15 minutes around the clock and document that they did so. (This is the reason we don't use restraints so much any more. It's a PIA) But ICE thinks they can just do it because....