By Jackie Fortier
The lobby at this St. John’s Community Health clinic in South Los Angeles is packed with patients, but community health worker Ana Ruth Varela is starting to worry that it might become much quieter. Many patients, she reports, are fearful of leaving their homes.
“The other day, I spoke with one of the patients. She said, ‘I don’t know. Should I go to my appointment? Should I cancel? I don’t know what to do.’ And I told her, ‘Just come.'”
Since Donald Trump took office again, anxiety over potential mass deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has gripped immigrant communities. For many years, a policy was in place that prevented federal immigration officials from making arrests at or near sensitive locations, such as schools, churches, hospitals, and health centers. This policy was among the first Trump reversed on January 21, just hours after he was inaugurated.
Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman rescinded the directive, stating in a press release that the decision would help agents track down immigrants accused of crimes. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement but rather trusts them to apply common sense,” the statement indicated.
The speed of this policy change caught Darryn Harris off guard. “I thought we had more time,” said Harris, who serves as the chief government affairs and community relations officer for St. John’s.
In response, Harris is racing to educate more than 1,000 employees at St. John’s on how to interpret warrants as they prepare for a new role — educating patients about their constitutional rights. California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is advising clinics to display information regarding patients’ rights to remain silent and to offer contact details for legal-aid organizations. Additionally, Bonta encourages health care providers to refrain from including patients’ immigration status in bills and medical records. His office has indicated that while staff should not physically obstruct immigration agents, they are not obligated to aid in making arrests.
Even though immigration arrests occurred in hospitals during Trump’s initial term, an overarching policy was still in place to respect “sensitive locations.” Currently, however, the DHS claims that prior rules impeded law enforcement efforts by allowing individuals without legal status to evade capture in particular settings.
Matt Lopas, who directs state advocacy and technical assistance for the National Immigration Law Center, emphasized that immigration officers must present a judge-signed warrant to access health records or enter private areas such as examination rooms. “It’s crucial that every health care center has someone trained to interpret those warrants and assess their legitimacy,” Lopas stated.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Zenaida Aguilera has been designated to interpret warrants for La Clínica de La Raza, where she serves as the compliance, privacy, and risk officer for the clinic network. If immigration agents arrive, Aguilera is on call for all 31 of the organization’s community clinics.
Aguilera has also taken on the responsibility of training hundreds of health staff members. She has already trained about 250, with a significant amount of work still to be accomplished. “We probably have about a thousand staff left to train,” she noted.
She expresses concerns that the Trump administration may intensify immigration enforcement efforts in California, home to roughly 2 million residents without legal status, the highest number in any state, as reported by the Pew Research Center. In 2022, around 11 million individuals were living in the U.S. without authorization.
Aguilera mentioned that La Clínica plans to display patients’ constitutional rights in clinic lobbies and provide resources, including contacts for legal aid organizations. “We would prefer to focus on providing care for our patients rather than training our staff on how to respond if ICE officials attempt to enter our clinics,” Aguilera lamented.
This article comes from a collaboration that includes NPR and KFF Health News. KFF Health News is a national newsroom delivering in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. To learn more about KFF, visit their website.
USE OUR CONTENT: This story may be republished for free (details).
