What To Do If: ICE Shows Up at Your Emergency Department
Feb 13, 2025
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Short and sweet - brief guidelines compiled from a few sources for best practices if ICE shows up on the doorstep of your hospital, given the recent DHS policy changes as of January 2025. Please note that this does not constitute legal counsel; it is best to inquire about institution-specific policies, and these will likely vary state to state.
Prepare for the worst, expect the best - four tips for how to respond if the previously unimaginable happens at your own ED.
Tip #1 - Stay calm; don't physically obstruct ICE
It is difficult to conceive of a situation where physical obstruction would be beneficial. We don’t need an immigrant advocate detained! Instead, take down the officers’ name and badge numbers for reference.
Tip #2 - Immediately engage legal counsel
Save your institution's legal counsel hotline number in your phone- look it up now! - for easy access down the road.
"It is within our legal rights, and our professional ethical obligations, to refuse to hand over identification or documents simply because ICE asks for them. The law can protect us, but only if we know and exercise the rights that it still affords us (for now)." – Eric Reinhart, MD
Tip #3 - Adhere to established HIPPAA guidelines: neither confirm or deny a patient's presence in the hospital, and don't share any other patient information.
Even if ICE shows up with a warrant, there are a few hiccups you can run into – a judicial (not administrative) warrant is required for hospital entry and uncovering of patient protected information, and these can be hard to tell apart. The judicial warrant also requires a signature to be valid! Again, engaging legal counsel to determine the type of warrant/paperwork presented is crucial.
Tip #4 - Return to patient care ASAP, and invite ICE officers to wait in public areas.
No ICE activity is as time-sensitive as your direct care to other patients in your ED. Kindly request ICE officers to wait outside or in indoor public areas of the hospital – they are legally allowed in the cafeteria, waiting rooms, and other non-patient-facing spaces.
Check out EMRA's guidelines for ICE interaction, and this article for a further exploration of a medical provider’s role in this space. Like or post a comment below to continue the discussion!
