Oregon Nurses Say ICE Is Turning Trauma Hospital Into an Extension of Detention and Scaring Patients Away

The Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) wrote to the President of Legacy Emanuel Medical Center on behalf of Oregon nurses at the hospital who are concerned about policies that aren’t being enforced equally.

They said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is being treated differently from local law enforcement on the property.

Trauma Hospital ICE Access Policies Questioned By Nurses

In a letter to Legacy, ONA stated that the hospital may be failing to comply with its own policies and HIPAA obligations. Legacy does not treat ICE the same way it treats other law enforcement. As a result, patients are being put at risk.

ONA members say that ICE officials bring detained people in for medical treatment without their badges and identification clearly visible for everybody to see who they are, making it hard to distinguish ICE from other people. They say ICE must be held accountable when it brings detainees into Legacy hospitals.

The nurses union is insisting that Legacy takes immediate action to help ensure safeguards are in place, including “an ICE credential-verification log” for agents who enter the hospital. Legacy hospital security currently affixes temporary badges to ICE agents.

Legacy indicated that their existing policies apply consistently to all federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and that there have been no updates specific to ICE.

The nurses’ concern follows the escalation of Portland’s high-stakes fight over ICE’s presence in the city, with officials in September, after the city threatened to evict the agency from the detention facility over repeated permit violations and overnight holds.

The permit limits the number of detainees ICE can have at the facility daily to fewer than 15, and they may be held for no more than 12 hours. The permit bars the agency from housing anyone overnight.