Physicians and Chicano community protest demand ICE out of hospitals
Los Angeles, CA – In early October, whistleblowers at White Memorial, a Boyle Heights Adventist hospital, leaked invaluable information. The whistleblowers stated that ICE agents were taking detainees from an inadequate ICE facility named “B-18” located within the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, to the Chicano neighborhood hospital.
Within the confines of White Memorial, in the emergency department, agents were terrorizing detainee patients. – with permission from hospital CEOs and directors. Among the crimes committed by ICE agents were violations of patient confidentiality and HIPAA law, denying detainees the ability to make their own medical care decisions, and interference by ICE agents whenever hospital staff attempted to connect detainees with their families.
Organizations like Centro CSO and the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, which includes Proyecto Pastoral, Union del Barrio and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, united with a newly formed network of healthcare workers – the People’s Care Collective. The People’s Care Collective called for a protest at hospitals collaborating with ICE, denouncing the “multiple health injustices committed by ICE and law enforcement toward detained patients at the Metropolitan Detention Center, Men’s Central Jail, and multiple hospitals.”
CSO joined their campaign to kick ICE out of White Memorial. A recent petition calls for ICE to follow HIPAA law and for no punishment for hospital staff if they ask ICE to exit exam rooms.
During the protest, Dr. Abhinaya Narayanan read a statement written by White Memorial healthcare workers stating, “We demand that White Memorial put into place additional protections for patient privacy, allow doctors and patients to have free and not controlled contact with patients’ families, and for medical providers and social workers [to] be able to assist patients and families with connection to support and legal representation.”
Gabriel Quiroz Jr, a member of Centro CSO and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization said, “I was born at White Memorial. The fear back in the early 1990s was that newborns were going to be kidnapped. Today, the fear is that White Memorial will do nothing to stop la migra [ICE] from entering or protecting our Raza from them.”
The protest took place on Sunday, December 14. It began outside of the Japanese Museum in downtown LA, where over 100 attendees marched to the B-18 facility, Men’s Central Jail, and then continued on Cesar E Chavez Avenue to end at White Memorial.
CSO will campaign to kick ICE out of White Memorial and will continue meeting with the administration of Adventist Health and White Memorial to ensure that they are held accountable.
Behind closed doors, healthcare workers tell the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network (BHIRN) that administration has said some of the following things, “Boyle Heights will forget about this,” “Well [the detainees] aren’t real patients,” “Follow what ICE agents ask you to do.”
Jordan Peña, a co-chair of CSO’s Immigration Committee, said, “It sends a powerful message when healthcare workers and community activists come together. We show that we are united in this fight. This protest was only the beginning of a strong relationship for the movement of change. For us, as CSO, we sent a clear message to the directors at White Memorial, that we are together and we aren’t going anywhere.”
If you wish to join the Boyle Heights fight, contact Centro CSO and sign the petition now.