Ariana Gomez, labor representative at California Nurses Association, which represents nurses at Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center, said Thursday there is “overwhelming discomfort” about the use of the guards.
“It is very unusual to have immigration-related guards in the hospital lobby for any length of time,” said Gomez. “This has never happened before.”
California state Senator Sasha Renée Pérez said their encampment shows “how aggressive the Trump administration has become in their pursuit to demonize and target our immigrant community.”
Private guards sit in the lobby of Glendale Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center on Thursday, July 9. The guards have been at the hospital all week.
(Maggie Sisco)
Pérez also said she will back legislation to ensure immigration agents do not enter the private areas of hospital facilities, such as emergency rooms.
At first, the guards positioned themselves behind a reception desk. The guards eventually moved a couple of feet away and several panels were erected to partially obscure their presence from hospital visitors in the lobby.
Photos of the guards, who sit in chairs or stand, show them wearing masks, green-army shirts or pants. One photo shows a guard wearing an arm patch that reads: “Detention Officer.” Immigration advocates, who have been camped out in the lobby since last week, took the images.
On Tuesday night, two of the guards declined to identify themselves to the Times.
Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital said in a statement that the “hospital cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas which include the hospital lobby/waiting area.”
The patient, Milagro Carolina Solis-Portillo, an El Salvador national, was arrested July 3 by federal officials near her Sherman Oaks home and later brought to the hospital after she suffered a medical emergency during her transport.
Solis-Portillo “is an illegal alien from El Salvador who has been removed from the United States twice and has been arrested for crimes of false identification, theft, and burglary,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. She declined to comment on the protocol of DHS-contracted security at hospitals.
Gomez, the nurses’ labor representative, said the guards’ presence is intimidating to people who enter the lobby.
She also said that some family members of patients will not come to visit because they’re afraid. The nurses have not been given direction from the hospital about what to say and how to respond when people ask about the guards. By law, nurses cannot share any patient information.
“The nurses do not want the guards there,” said Gomez.
In a statement released through her attorney, Solis-Portillo said that she was treated inhumanely during her arrest by the agents, alleging that they yelled at her as she began vomiting while in their custody.
She suggested she came to the U.S. for security reasons and disputed the government’s account of her background.
“I wouldn’t be safe in any other country. I have never had a single criminal conviction,” said Solis-Portillo.
She said that agents told her to “shut up” as she was being arrested and that she started “panicking and vomiting and drowning in my own vomit,” during her arrest.
“When they saw how badly I was choking, they finally exited the freeway into a secluded area. As I threw up, they grabbed me by my head and yelled, “Stop! Stop!” I was about lose consciousness, and they laughed at me, treated me inhumanely and abused their authority.”
Lynn Damiano Pearson, senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, called the guards’ extended presence in the hospital lobby “a pretty unusual situation.”
“I would say absolutely that this is a gross misuse of resources,” said Pearson, who questioned whether the woman is a threat to public safety.
Pearson, who is not involved in the case, said that immigration officials can’t enter private areas in a hospital without a warrant.
McLaughlin disputed Pearson’s characterization of the use of the guards.
“I doubt the victims [Solis-Portillo] robbed and and burglarized would call it ‘gross misuse,’” said McLaughlin and said officers responded to her medical condition.
She also said it is a “longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody. This includes access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care.”
If Solis-Portillo has twice been removed twice from the U.S., she may be subject to expedited removal by the government without additional court proceedings, said Pearson.
DHS declined to provide additional details about Solis-Portillo’s case.