The Trump administration has rescinded protections for hospital patients from immigration enforcement actions. Previously, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were instructed to refrain from taking enforcement actions in “protected areas” including hospitals, schools and churches.
Washington State hospitals are places of healing. Hospitals in our state care for everyone regardless of who they are or why they need care. Hospitals will strive to remain safe and accessible to all Washington residents, regardless of immigration or citizenship status. Given recent federal changes, hospitals are taking steps to provide increased protections to immigrant communities. However, hospitals must respond to properly executed court orders or warrants for immigration enforcement.
Thus far, hospitals in Washington State have not experienced immigration enforcement actions.
Steps hospitals are taking:
Controlling access to facilities. Hospitals are developing and implementing policies to designate caregiving and other areas of hospitals as private spaces. Only those with approval may access these private areas.
Providing leadership and staff support. Hospital leaders have concerns about how frontline staff might respond to or feel intimidated by armed immigration enforcement officers. Hospitals are designating an administrator on each shift to respond in cases of immigration enforcement and ensuring this person is trained and can quickly access legal and administrative resources. All frontline staff are being instructed to neither confirm nor deny the presence of a patient to an ICE officer and to quickly route immigration-enforcement action to the point person.
Verifying validity of enforcement requests. A demand from ICE or CBP is not sufficient to gain access to patients or private areas of hospitals. There can be confusion about what is a properly executed court order or warrant and not simply an ICE or CBP demand, and this confusion can be heightened when faced with armed officers. Hospitals are educating their lead staff about how to verify the validity of the enforcement demand.
Maintaining patient privacy. If there is a court order or a judicial warrant, hospitals must comply with it. However, Washington State hospitals will continue to follow all state and federal privacy laws and will not provide identifying information about patients except as required in the laws.
Offering “opting out” from directory information. Every patient in Washington State hospitals is offered the opportunity to “opt out” of the patient directory. The patient directory is used by front desk staff to verify that a patient is there or to route calls to them. Hospitals encourage undocumented immigrants and their advocates to ask to be opted out of the patient directory.
Hospitals in Washington State Hospitals would like to thank the Washington State Attorney General’s Office for the Keep Washington Working toolkit, which has been very helpful in planning and responding to these changes.