{"id":1405130,"date":"2026-02-08T10:20:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenewsherald.com\/?p=1405130&preview=true&preview_id=1405130"},"modified":"2026-02-08T10:21:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T15:21:00","slug":"i-cant-tell-you-attorneys-relatives-struggle-to-find-hospitalized-ice-detainees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenewsherald.com\/2026\/02\/08\/i-cant-tell-you-attorneys-relatives-struggle-to-find-hospitalized-ice-detainees\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I can\u2019t tell you\u2019: Attorneys, relatives struggle to find hospitalized ICE detainees"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Family
Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. (Oona Zenda\/\/KFF Health News\/TNS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Oona Zenda, KFF Health News<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband\u2019s feeble voice through the phone.<\/p>\n

A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio C\u00e9sar Pe\u00f1a from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted his wife there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat hospital are you at?\u201d Romero asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n

Viridiana Chabolla, Pe\u00f1a\u2019s attorney, couldn\u2019t get an answer to that question, either. Pe\u00f1a\u2019s deportation officer and the medical contractor at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center refused to tell her. Exasperated, she tried calling a nearby hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said even if they had a person in ICE custody under their care, they wouldn\u2019t be able to confirm whether he\u2019s there or not, that only ICE can give me the information,\u201d Chabolla said. The hospital confirmed this policy to KFF Health News.<\/p>\n

\"Julio
Julio Cesar Peña, who has terminal kidney disease, sits on his bike in the backyard of his home in Glendale, California. (Peña family\/Peña family\/TNS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. They say many hospitals refuse to provide information or allow contact with these patients. Instead, hospitals allow immigration officers to call the shots on how much \u2014 if any \u2014 contact is allowed, which can deprive patients of their constitutional right to seek legal advice and leave them vulnerable to abuse, attorneys said.<\/p>\n

Hospitals say they are trying to protect the safety and privacy of patients, staff, and law enforcement officials, even while hospital employees in Los Angeles<\/a>, Minneapolis<\/a>, and Portland, Oregon<\/a>, cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted immigration raids, say it\u2019s made their jobs difficult. Hospitals have used what are sometimes called blackout procedures, which can include registering a patient under a pseudonym, removing their name from the hospital directory, or prohibiting staff from even confirming that a patient is in the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard incidences of this blackout process being used at multiple hospitals across the state, and it\u2019s very concerning,\u201d said Shiu-Ming Cheer, the deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the California Immigrant Policy Center, an advocacy group.<\/p>\n

Some Democratic-led states, including California, Colorado, and Maryland<\/a>, have enacted legislation that seeks to protect patients from immigration enforcement in hospitals. However, those policies do not address protections for people already in ICE custody.<\/p>\n

\"Julio
Julio Peña Jr. hugs his stepmother, Lydia Romero, outside an immigration detention facility in downtown Los Angeles as they try to get information about his father, Julio Cesar Peña, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in front of his Glendale, California, home in December. (Immigrant Defenders Law Center\/Immigrant Defenders Law Center\/TNS)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More detainees hospitalized<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Pe\u00f1a is among more than 350,000 people<\/a> arrested by federal immigration authorities since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. As arrests and detentions have climbed, so too have reports of people taken to hospitals by immigration agents because of illness or injury \u2014 due to preexisting conditions or problems stemming from their arrest or detention.<\/p>\n

ICE has faced criticism<\/a> for using aggressive<\/a> and deadly<\/a> tactics, as well as for reports of mistreatment<\/a> and inadequate medical care<\/a> at its facilities. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters at a Jan. 20 news conference outside a detention center he visited in California City that he spoke to a diabetic woman held there who had not received treatment in two months<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While there are no publicly available statistics on the number of people sick or injured in ICE detention, the agency\u2019s news releases point to 32 people<\/a> who died in immigration custody in 2025. Six more have died this year.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for information about its policies or Pe\u00f1a\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n

According to ICE\u2019s guidelines<\/a>, people in custody should be given access to a telephone, visits from family and friends, and private consultation with legal counsel. The agency can make administrative decisions, including about visitation, when a patient is in the hospital, but should defer to hospital policies on contacting next of kin when a patient is seriously ill, the guidelines state.<\/p>\n

Asked in detail about hospital practices related to patients in immigration custody and whether there are best practices that hospitals should follow, Ben Teicher, a spokesperson for the American Hospital Association, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

David Simon, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association, said that \u201cthere are times when hospitals will \u2014 at the request of law enforcement \u2014 maintain confidentiality of patients\u2019 names and other identifying characteristics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although policies vary, members of the public can typically call a hospital and ask for a patient by name to find out whether they\u2019re there, and often be transferred to the patient\u2019s room, said William Weber, an emergency physician in Minneapolis and medical director for the Medical Justice Alliance, which advocates for the medical needs of people in law enforcement custody. Family members and others authorized by the patient can visit. And medical staff routinely call relatives to let them know a loved one is in the hospital, or to ask for information that could help with their care.<\/p>\n

But when a patient is in law enforcement custody, hospitals frequently agree to restrict this kind of information sharing and access, Weber said. The rationale is that these measures prevent unauthorized outsiders from threatening the patient or law enforcement personnel, given that hospitals lack the security infrastructure of a prison or detention center. High-profile patients such as celebrities sometimes also request this type of protection.<\/p>\n

Several attorneys and health care providers questioned the need for such restrictions. Immigration detention is civil, not criminal, detention. The Trump administration says it\u2019s focused on arresting and deporting criminals<\/a>, yet most of those arrested have no criminal conviction, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse<\/a> and several news outlets.<\/p>\n

Taken outside his home<\/strong><\/h4>\n

According to Pe\u00f1a\u2019s wife, Romero, he has no criminal record. Pe\u00f1a came to the United States from Mexico in sixth grade and has an adult son in the U.S. military. The 43-year-old has terminal kidney disease and survived a heart attack in November. He has trouble walking and is partially blind, his wife said. He was detained Dec. 8 while resting outside after coming home from dialysis treatment.<\/p>\n

Initially, Romero was able to find her husband through the ICE Online Detainee Locator System<\/a>. She visited him at a temporary holding facility in downtown Los Angeles, bringing him his medicines and a sweater. She then saw he\u2019d been moved to the Adelanto detention center. But the locator did not show where he was after he was hospitalized.<\/p>\n

When she and other relatives drove to the detention facility to find him, they were turned away, she said. Romero received occasional calls from her husband in the hospital but said they were less than 10 minutes long and took place under ICE surveillance. She wanted to know where he was so she could be at the hospital to hold his hand, make sure he was well cared for, and encourage him to stay strong, she said.<\/p>\n

Shackling him and preventing him from seeing his family was unfair and unnecessary, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s weak,\u201d Romero said. \u201cIt\u2019s not like he\u2019s going to run away.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICE guidelines<\/a> say contact and visits from family and friends should be allowed \u201cwithin security and operational constraints.\u201d Detainees have a constitutional right<\/a> to speak confidentially with an attorney. Weber said immigration authorities should tell attorneys where their clients are and allow them to talk in person or use an unmonitored phone line.<\/p>\n

Hospitals, though, fall into a gray area on enforcing these rights, since they are primarily focused on treating medical needs, Weber said. Still, he added, hospitals should ensure their policies align with the law.<\/p>\n

Family denied access<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Numerous immigration attorneys have spent weeks trying to locate clients detained by ICE, with their efforts sometimes thwarted by hospitals.<\/p>\n

Nicolas Thompson-Lleras, a Los Angeles attorney who counsels immigrants facing deportation, said two of his clients were registered under aliases at different hospitals in Los Angeles County last year. Initially, the hospitals denied the clients were there and refused to let Thompson-Lleras meet with them, he said. Family members were also denied access, he said.<\/p>\n

One of his clients was Bayron Rovidio Marin<\/a>, a car wash worker injured during a raid in August. Immigration agents surveilled him for over a month at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a county-run facility, without charging him.<\/p>\n

In November, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to curb the use<\/a> of blackout policies for patients under civil immigration custody at county-run hospitals. In a statement, Arun Patel, the chief patient safety and clinical risk management officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said the policies are designed to reduce safety risks for patients, doctors, nurses, and custody officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some situations, there may be concerns about threats to the patient, attempts to interfere with medical care, unauthorized visitors, or the introduction of contraband,\u201d Patel said. \u201cOur goal is not to restrict care but to allow care to happen safely and without disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaving patients vulnerable<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Thompson-Lleras said he\u2019s concerned that hospitals are cooperating with federal immigration authorities at the expense of patients and their families and leaving patients vulnerable to abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows people to be treated suboptimally,\u201d Thompson-Lleras said. \u201cIt allows people to be treated on abbreviated timelines, without supervision, without family intervention or advocacy. These people are alone, disoriented, being interrogated, at least in Bayron\u2019s case, under pain and influence of medication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Such incidents are alarming to hospital workers. In Los Angeles, two health care professionals who asked not to be identified by KFF Health News, out of concern for their livelihoods, said that ICE and hospital administrators, at public and private hospitals, frequently block staff from contacting family members for people in custody, even to find out about their health conditions or what medications they\u2019re on. That violates medical ethics, they said.<\/p>\n

Blackout procedures are another concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey help facilitate, whether intentionally or not, the disappearance of patients,\u201d said one worker, a physician for the county\u2019s Department of Health Services and part of a coalition of concerned health workers from across the region.<\/p>\n

At Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, nurses publicly expressed outrage over what they saw as hospital cooperation with ICE and the flouting of patient rights. Legacy Health has sent a cease and desist letter<\/a> to the nurses\u2019 union, accusing it of making \u201cfalse or misleading statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really disgusted,\u201d said Blaire Glennon, a nurse who quit her job at the hospital in December. She said numerous patients were brought to the hospital by ICE with serious injuries they sustained while being detained. \u201cI felt like Legacy was doing massive human rights violations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Handcuffed while unconscious<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Two days before Christmas, Chabolla, Pe\u00f1a\u2019s attorney, received a call from ICE with the answer she and Romero had been waiting for. Pe\u00f1a was at Victor Valley Global Medical Center, about 10 miles from Adelanto, and about to be released.<\/p>\n

Excited, Romero and her family made the two-hour-plus drive from Glendale to the hospital to take him home.<\/p>\n

When they got there, they found Pe\u00f1a intubated and unconscious, his arm and leg still handcuffed to the hospital bed. He\u2019d had a severe seizure on Dec. 20, but no one had told his family or legal team, his attorney said.<\/p>\n

Tim Lineberger, a spokesperson for Victor Valley Global Medical Center\u2019s parent company, KPC Health, said he could not comment on specific patient cases, because of privacy protections. He said the hospital\u2019s policies on patient information disclosure comply with state and federal law.<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a was finally cleared to go home on Jan. 5. No court date has been set, and his family is filing a petition to adjust his legal status based on his son\u2019s military service. For now, he still faces deportation proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u00a92026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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