{"id":3996,"date":"2025-02-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=3996"},"modified":"2025-02-26T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T10:00:00","slug":"health-clinic-workers-brush-up-on-constitutional-protections-as-immigration-raids-loom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=3996","title":{"rendered":"Health Clinic Workers Brush Up on Constitutional Protections as Immigration Raids Loom"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lobby at this St. John\u2019s Community Health clinic<\/a> in South Los Angeles bustles with patients. But community health worker Ana Ruth Varela is worried that it\u2019s about to get a lot quieter. Many patients, she said, are afraid to leave their homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other day I spoke with one of the patients. She said: \u2018I don\u2019t know. Should I go to my appointment? Should I cancel? I don\u2019t know what to do.\u2019 And I said, \u2018Just come.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House, fear of mass deportations carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gripped immigrant communities.<\/p>\n

For years, a long-standing policy<\/a> prevented federal immigration agents from making arrests at or near sensitive locations, including schools, places of worship, hospitals, and health centers. It was one of the first policies Trump rolled back in January, just hours after his inauguration.<\/p>\n

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman revoked the directive on Jan. 21. In an accompanying press release, a DHS spokesperson said the action would assist agents searching for immigrants who have committed crimes. \u201cThe Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,\u201d the statement said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The speed of the change took Darryn Harris<\/a> by surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we had more time,\u201d said Harris, chief government affairs and community relations officer for St. John\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Harris is racing to teach more than 1,000 St. John\u2019s workers how to read warrants as they train for a new role \u2014 teaching patients their constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is advising clinics<\/a> to post information about patients\u2019 right to remain silent and to provide patients with contact information for legal-aid groups.<\/p>\n

Bonta is also urging health care providers to avoid including patients\u2019 immigration status in bills and medical records. His office directs that while staff should not physically obstruct immigration agents, they are under no obligation to assist with an arrest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even though immigration arrests took place in hospitals during Trump\u2019s first term, the overall policy was still one of deference to \u201csensitive locations.\u201d Now, however, DHS states that the previous rules hindered law enforcement efforts by creating sites where people without legal status could evade capture.<\/p>\n

Matt Lopas<\/a>, director of state advocacy and technical assistance for the National Immigration Law Center<\/a>, said that in order for immigration officers to access health information or go into private spaces such as exam rooms, they must present a warrant signed by a judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredibly important that every health care center has somebody who is trained to be able to read those warrants\u201d and determine their validity, Lopas said.<\/p>\n

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Zenaida Aguilera<\/a> has been tapped to read warrants for La Cl\u00ednica de La Raza<\/a>. She is the compliance, privacy, and risk officer for the clinic network. If immigration agents show up, she\u2019s on call for all 31 of the organization\u2019s community clinics.<\/p>\n

Aguilera is also now in charge of training hundreds of health staffers. She has trained about 250 thus far, but the majority of that work is yet to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have about, probably, a thousand more staff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She fears the Trump administration will target California for immigration enforcement because of its approximately 2 million residents<\/a> without legal status, the highest of any state, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2022, 11 million people were in the U.S. without authorization.<\/p>\n

Aguilera said La Cl\u00ednica plans to post patients\u2019 constitutional rights in clinic lobbies and will provide resources such as contact information for legal-aid groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to just do the work of caring for our patients rather than train our staff on what to do if there\u2019s an ICE official that tries to come into our clinics,\u201d Aguilera said.<\/p>\n

This article is from a partnership that includes NPR<\/a> and KFF Health News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The lobby at this St. John\u2019s Community Health clinic in South Los Angeles bustles with patients. But community health worker Ana Ruth Varela is worried that it\u2019s about to get a lot quieter. Many patients, she said, are afraid to leave their homes. \u201cThe other day I spoke with one of the patients. She said:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}