ICE agents often ignore safety and privacy practices for detainee patients, Tacoma nurses say

Nurses at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Tacoma say that since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, they’ve seen many more ICE detainees come to the hospital as patients — always accompanied by two ICE agents acting as guards.

The nurses allege that these agents have repeatedly ignored practices safeguarding patients’ privacy, health, and safety, including by refusing to leave detainees’ rooms during catheter changes, shackling a detainee so tightly to a bed they caused nerve damage to the person’s hand, and refusing to wear required masks and gowns in rooms where patients had communicable diseases.

The nurses say they’ve asked hospital administrators to intervene, to no avail.

“I feel like [ICE agents] treat [detainees] like they’re animals,” one nurse said. KUOW agreed not to publish her name due to fears of professional retaliation.

“It makes me mad,” she added. “They’re running the show when it comes to these patients. They’re in our house; they should follow our rules.”

The nurses KUOW interviewed for this article — one medical and surgical nurse, and a union representative for all the nurses at the hospital — say the agents guarding these patients are creating safety hazards for patients and others, and are making it impossible for the detainees to receive safe, dignified care.

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The nurses say they want, at the very least, hospital administrators or Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which owns the hospital, to clarify what the policies and procedures are for ICE agents, especially when there’s a disagreement between the agents and the frontline care staff.

But their asks go further than that.

“What I think most nurses want to see is … ICE out of our hospitals,” said Jared Richardson, a nurse and union organizer for the Washington State Nurses Association. “We think it’s harmful to the healing environment. We think it's harmful to the community. We think it's harmful to preventative care, and we don’t think … the presence of ICE in the hospital [is] appropriate.”

“We believe that detainees can be brought in and cared for with dignity and given great care without [the guards’] presence,” Richardson added.

Concerns about staff safety, patient dignity

In addition to interviewing nurses, KUOW reviewed seven workplace complaints filed to the hospital and nurses union about ICE agents in the hospital.

KUOW learned that nurses at St. Joseph’s have raised concerns that ICE is bringing detainees to the hospital too late, at which point medical conditions that would have been preventable or treatable have become serious. The Washington State Nurses Association and several other organizations have planned a protest about that for Friday.

ICE is required by federal law to provide timely access to medical care, including emergency care and hospitalization.

Nurses also say they’re concerned that the presence of ICE agents could scare staff, especially those who are immigrants, and other patients. They worry that could lead immigrants to delay or avoid medical care.

They also reported that an ICE agent left a gun unattended in a hospital bathroom for hours; the incident was also reported to police.

The documents also outline complaints that ICE agents took off their masks to eat in an infection control room adjoining the room where a patient was being treated for tuberculosis. In a separate incident, a nurse reported that an ICE agent refused to wear a gown in a room where a patient was being tested for a bacterial infection that, when severe, can cause life-threatening damage to the colon.

Nurses who spoke with KUOW said they’re angry about ICE agents' use of restraints. They explained that officers from Washington state’s Department of Corrections, which brings patients from the women’s prison to St. Joseph’s, generally only shackle inmates by one ankle — but ICE agents have been shackling detainees by both ankles and one wrist, or sometimes by both ankles and both wrists.

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In cases where the shackles don’t allow patients to sit up to eat without choking, or to hold a sandwich, agents have refused to remove or loosen the restraints, the nurses allege.

In at least one case, agents required doctor’s orders before agreeing to unshackle a patient from the bed so he could sit up, walk, or shower — and even then, they only allowed him to move for brief windows, which made it harder for him to heal and recover, the medical and surgical nurse told KUOW.

“If [he were] a normal patient, we’d have him up as much as possible,” she said.

According to a workplace complaint from Feb. 7, one ICE agent tightened the shackles so much on a patient’s right wrist that the patient experienced bruising and nerve damage.

The complaint quoted a doctor’s note saying that the shackles left “notable indentation and bruising” and caused pain and numbness in two of the patient’s fingers. The doctor ordered that the agent, going forward, had to leave at least three fingers’ width of room in the handcuff.

KUOW asked hospital owner Virginia Mason what policies they have around the use of restraints by ICE agents and other law enforcement and how those policies have been communicated to staff. A spokesperson declined to answer that question and instead sent a statement that said, in part, “Questions sometimes arise when patients are in the custody of law enforcement or are otherwise detained. Our focus in every situation is the same: ensuring patients receive appropriate medical care in a safe and respectful environment.”

Richardson, with the state nurses association, told KUOW that ICE agents have also been violating patients’ privacy — by refusing to leave the hospital room during catheter changes, for example, or when the nurse needs to change a patient who has soiled themselves. He said the agents have also refused to leave when providers need to ask patients about their health history or concerns.

“It’s horrifying,” Richardson said. “As nurses, we’re taught about various rights that patients have … and [when] those rights get eroded, what you also get from that is the moral injury to the nurses.”

“We all got in this to help people,” he added, saying that, now, nurses feel they’re being asked to “facilitate harming people.”

Virginia Mason declined to comment on those specific allegations but said in their statement, “When law enforcement officials are permitted by law to be present, our teams follow established protocols designed to protect patient privacy.”

RELATED: ICE conducted 37 investigations into officer misconduct in last year

“We also provide ongoing guidance and training for our employees on patient rights [and] privacy,” the statement added.

But the nurse who spoke to KUOW on condition of anonymity said she’s received no response to her multiple requests for protocols and guidance from St. Joseph’s administrators.

“We have a policy for everything, but they refuse to put anything out on this,” she said. “They won’t even acknowledge it.”

“We’re still waiting on getting some clear feedback on what the proper channels are,” Richardson said.

“I keep thinking back to … how far we seemingly have come from — going from taking a stand to protect our patients to kind of just rolling over,” he added. “Maybe [the hospital administration] needs to take a second look at these contracts they have with the Department of Homeland Security, and see if those contracts are in line with their values and mission statement.”

A growing presence in the hospital

“Before these last few months, I could count on one hand the number of times we saw someone from ICE,” the nurse at St. Joseph’s said. She’s worked there for nearly 17 years.

“Now, I see ICE in the hospital every day,” she added.

Elizabeth Benki is an attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. She said part of the reason for the increase in patients could be that there are now more medically complex detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, since it’s become almost impossible to gain a medical release.

“In the past, typically, if someone had a medical condition that required a higher level of care, we would submit … a release request with medical records,” Benki said. In cases where the detainee was HIV-positive or pregnant, needed dialysis, or had other ongoing and complex medical needs, she said, “those [release requests] would sometimes be approved, in the absence of someone with a more serious criminal history.”

“That essentially doesn't happen anymore,” she added, “where they're willing to release [someone] just on the basis of a health issue.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to KUOW’s requests for comment.