Community leaders are calling for stricter protections following reports of ICE activity at local hospitals.
Advocates are demanding that Hennepin County Medical Center ban federal immigration agents from clinical areas after six ICE agents reportedly handcuffed a critically ill patient to his hospital bed during a recent operation over the holidays.
DFL State Rep. Mahmoud Noor, who was on the scene that day, warned that these raids "create more harm than necessary."
"That created tension within the emergency room and within the hospital area. That created tension for the patients who are getting care in the hospital, for everyone who was within that area," Noor said.
Healthcare workers, led by the Minnesota Nurses Association, are now pushing for formal policies to ensure hospitals remain "safe spaces for healing" rather than sites of enforcement.
Dr. Janna Gerwirtz O'Brien is the President-Elect of the Minnesota Chapter of Pediatrics. She says the ICE agents handcuffed a patient to his bed , and they did so without a warrant.
"There is a crisis among our Latina and Somali families," O'Brien explains. "They are afraid to come into the hospital. We are seeing a rash of appendicitis that should have been treated earlier, but people have been delaying care because of fear that ICE is going to show up at the hospital."
Groups like Unidos Minnesota say they are expanding training for hundreds of "frontline healers" to help hospitals manage federal agents on-site.