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NYC hospitals scramble to send a clear message to patients, staff amid ICE threats
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Feb 6, 2025
Modified Feb 6, 2025
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Deb Cohn-Orbach/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
By
Caroline Lewis
Published Feb 6, 2025
Modified Feb 6, 2025
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Several New York City hospital systems have been sharing guidance with employees in recent weeks to advise them on what to do if an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent or other federal law enforcement officer shows up.
But the written instructions at some locations are sparking concerns among care providers.
Hospitals started sharing their internal policies on handling ICE with staff last month, after President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 and promptly rescinded a policy that limited federal immigration enforcement in “sensitive locations” such as schools, churches and hospitals.
Immigration policy experts said hospitals are still only legally required to allow ICE officers to enter if they have a warrant signed by a federal judge — which is difficult to obtain.
But some hospital workers said their employers’ policies should go further to assure staff that patients without permanent legal status will be protected when they seek medical care. The city’s public hospitals are also subject to New York’s sanctuary protections, which bar city government personnel and resources from being used to assist immigration officials, except in limited circumstances.
Gothamist reviewed internal memos on how to handle ICE from NYU Langone Health, NYC Health and Hospitals, Mount Sinai Health System and NewYork-Presbyterian. All generally indicate that federal officers should be asked why they’re there and should be required to present identification and any warrants, subpoenas or other documents that they have.
The policies also state that hospital employees should contact security or other designated personnel to review the documents and make the ultimate decision about whether to let the officer in.
But there are variations among the hospitals’ messages.
The memos from NYC Health and Hospitals and NYU Langone Health both end with identical notes of caution: “Please note, it is illegal to intentionally protect a person who is in the United States unlawfully from detention. You should not try to actively help a person avoid being found by ICE.”
Sean Petty, an ER nurse at NYC Health and Hospitals’ Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, said he thought the internal memo from the city health system was “overly concerned and deferential to ICE’s interpretation of the law,” which he said was “a huge mistake in this climate.”
He added that the public system has a special responsibility to undocumented patients. “ We are and have been a critical resource for undocumented humans in this city,” Petty said.
Chris Miller, a spokesperson for NYC Health and Hospitals, said in a statement, "The policy we sent to all staff sets forth clear and understandable steps to take if an enforcement agent enters the facility, and it ensures the safety of our staff — who are on the frontlines everyday— by making sure they understand the law."
NYC Health and Hospitals has been issuing frequent public-facing messages in recent weeks to reassure patients that everyone will be treated, regardless of their immigration status.
The health system sent an email to patients on Wednesday with the subject line “Care for NYC. No exceptions.”
The email noted that NYC Health and Hospitals doesn’t require patients to share information about their immigration status and also said the system “cannot give your information to anyone else without authorization by you, the patient, or without being required or specifically authorized to do so by law.”
Dr. Andrew Goldstein is employed by NYU Langone and works as a primary care doctor at Bellevue, which is also in the public hospital system. He said NYU Langone needs “to do a better job clarifying how health care workers can best protect their immigrant patients and what rights we and our patients have to protect patient privacy and not allow immigration enforcement officers into private care settings without warrants.”
Becca Telzak, deputy director at the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road, said it’s a moment when hospitals need to be as clear as possible about people’s rights because any ambiguous messaging could sow confusion.
“ Given all the rhetoric coming from the federal administration, there's just a lot of fear around going anywhere, including hospitals or any large institution,” Telzak said.
In its guidance to hospitals on how to handle ICE, the Greater New York Hospital Association included a flow chart indicating that hospitals are only legally required to honor federal judicial warrants. Mount Sinai noted as much in a Q&A it shared with employees. But not all of the internal memos from hospitals state that rule.
Hospitals should all be clear about the scope of their legal obligations in their policies on ICE, said Peter Markowitz, co-director of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law School.
After reviewing the policies from Mount Sinai and NYC Health and Hospitals, he added, “ They appropriately direct employees in most circumstances to allow a more seasoned specialist in the institution to make the ultimate judgment” on whether to allow an ICE officer in.
He said that’s important because documents presented by ICE that appear to authorize an enforcement action can be misleading.
Judicial warrants are generally difficult to obtain unless someone is suspected of or wanted for a serious offense such as a violent crime or drug trafficking, said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.
“For an ordinary undocumented person who has no criminal accusations, charges, or convictions against them, simply the fact of being undocumented is unlikely to give rise to a federal judge signing off on a warrant,” she added.
This article was updated with additional comment.
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Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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