U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and contractors who have camped out at Glendale Memorial Hospital for nearly a week, allegedly waiting to re-apprehend a woman with a serious medical condition, are intimidating and hostile and interfere with patient care, nurses and patient advocates say. The patient, Milagro Solis Portillo, was taken from her Sherman Oaks home by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on July 3. While in transit, Portillo had a health emergency — a nature of which was not specified — and was eventually taken to Glendale Memorial Hospital and admitted for care, but only after she was left “handcuffed and covered in vomit” for more than eight hours, according to a statement written by Portillo’s family and shared by her lawyer, Sarah Houston with Immigrant Defenders Law Center, at a press conference Monday. “[Portillo] is now being treated and requires extensive hospitalization,” the family’s statement read. “Meanwhile, ICE have contracted private detention officers to monitor her 24/7 at the hospital, creating a hostile environment for her other patients and hospital staff. Their presence is invasive and inappropriate.”The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to questions about whether the agents at the hospital were ICE personnel or contracted private security.Houston also warned that Portillo has health conditions that “make it impossible to house her in an ICE detention center.”LA Public Press was unable to reach Houston directly for additional comments and clarifications. In an email statement, an official DHS said that Portillo is from El Salvador and has been removed from the U.S. twice. The official said she’s been arrested for crimes of false identification, theft and burglary, and defended the handling of the situation. The statement was attributed to a DHS official but no name was provided.“ICE takes its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in our custody very seriously. 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,” the official said. Homeland Security did not respond to questions regarding the alleged 8-hour gap between Portillo’s health emergency and her admittance to the hospital. In an email, Ariana Gomez, a California Nurses Association labor representative who spoke with Glendale Memorial Hospital nurses familiar with the situation, told LA Public Press that ICE agents brought Portillo into the ER, but then remained in the ER, asking staff when Portillo would be released. “There was tension between our nurses and the agents, whose presence was intimidating while [staff] were providing bedside care,” Gomez said. “The agents were there through Saturday evening or Sunday morning,” Gomez continued. “They sat in the lobby and slept on the lobby couch.” Officers sit in lobby chairs at Glendale Memorial Hospital. Nurses say immigration enforcement agents sat in the lobby and slept on couches during their extended presence at the facility. Credit: Aerrol AmpeloquioShe said that on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, the ICE agents were replaced by “security guards/agents” in green attire and “were seen sitting behind the reception counter.”Legal concerns over patient privacyThe presence of ICE creates legal complications, said nurses and advocates who worry about patient confidentiality. Houston explained that while HIPAA generally protects patient privacy, hospitals can share health information with law enforcement in specific circumstances, such as locating fugitives or missing persons. However, it’s unclear what information, if any, has been shared, and she said the hospital hasn’t explained why they believe Portillo’s case fits those exceptions.“We asked the hospital to give us the information about why they think they had to give this information,” Houston said.According to Gomez, nurses have a policy of not talking or interacting with ICE, and patient discharge plans are also protected. National Nurses United, a major nurses union, has posted guidance on social media for nurses dealing with ICE in medical facilities, stating “Hospitals should be a place of healing, not fear. We have rights to protect our patients.”Gomez reiterated the strict HIPAA law that nurses are not to share any patient information with anyone other than a designated family member.“Patients can only be released to a family member or an assigned caregiver with instructions on medications and other discharge orders,” Gomez continued. “Now that this particular patient will most probably be ‘kidnapped,’ our nurses are asking the hospital how to discharge the patient without violating the discharge policy. The hospital has not yet answered this question.”Robert Miller, a spokesperson for the hospital’s parent company, Common Spirit Health, offered a prepared statement on the situation. “Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital acknowledges the community’s concerns regarding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and we share a desire to keep our neighbors safe,” Miller wrote. “The hospital cannot legally restrict law enforcement or security personnel from being present in public areas, which include the hospital lobby/waiting area.”Miller did not respond to questions about how Portillo would be discharged or address other concerns raised by nurses. He has not responded to multiple additional inquiries since Monday.The hospital’s position appears to based on a Trump administration executive order, issued on his first day in office, that rescinds a Biden-era policy protecting certain locations, including hospitals, from enforcement by ICE agents. The union for the nurses, however, wants Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital — and all hospitals — to keep ICE out of the facilities. Sandy Reding, a Dignity Health nurse in Bakersfield and president of the California Nurses Association, told LA Public Press that the union opposes Trump’s reversal of hospitals being a safe space. “We want them to reinstate that hospitals are a safe place for people to receive care,” Reding said. “ICE agents should absolutely not be in contact with the patient, interfering with our care or intimidating staff nurses and other patients.”Reding, who was briefed on the situation by nurses, said she learned Monday that hospital security dialed the unit where Portillo was staying on behalf of ICE, asking when she would be discharged. “Of course, the nurse said, ‘Who is this, and what are you doing? We don’t give out any type of information about any patient.’ But that shouldn’t happen either.”When a reporter visited the hospital lobby Tuesday morning, two officials dressed in green pants and wearing surgical masks were stationed next to the front desk, behind banners but visible. A security guard approached the reporter and suggested not standing near where the officials were positioned. When asked if the men were ICE agents, the guard said he didn’t know and walked away.As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, ICE agents were still stationed in the lobby, according to Maggie Sisco, a local immigration advocate who has observed ICE agents at the facility daily since July 4. Portillo’s current status could not be confirmed, as hospital policy prohibits releasing discharge information to anyone other than designated family members.Detention officers sit in the lobby of Glendale Memorial Hospital. Immigration enforcement agents have maintained a presence at the hospital for nearly a week while waiting to re-apprehend a patient, nurses and advocates say. Credit: Maggie SiscoThat interaction is yet another cause for concern, Reding suggested. “[ICE] shouldn’t be behind the desk, period. They’re within earshot of people registering [and checking in]. It’s not like nobody can see them, and it looks like they’re hiding.”Sisco told LA Public Press that hospital security appears to be working on behalf of ICE agents. “When I asked ICE why they were standing outside a public restroom, the [hospital] guards kicked me out,” she said. Sisco added that she and others are observing the facility because “we don’t want the patient stolen by ICE without anyone witnessing it.” Reding worries that ICE will disrupt any patient’s discharge.“How’s that going to work [if ICE is] lurking around, and the nurse brings a patient with the wheelchair to their family? Then what? They’re going to snatch our patient from us? What’s the nurse supposed to do? That’s not a safe discharge, and it’s traumatic for everybody involved. So we need some policies in place and some processes in place.”LA Public Press inquired about the hospital’s policies, including cooperation by hospital security, but the parent company has not responded. A representative for the nurses’ union said the corporation issued a memo to nurses at the hospital following the incident, but the union representative did not know the memo’s contents. LA Public Press has not seen a copy of the memo.As of press time, the hospital had not publicly announced specific policies regarding immigration officers.Last month ICE was also present at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to guard a subject who was receiving care, the feds said. State officials push backIn December, California Attorney General Rob Bonta released guidance recommending limited compliance with ICE demands. The guidance states that California law prohibits law enforcement from inquiring about patients’ immigration status and that ICE administrative warrants “do not authorize access to non-public areas of a healthcare facility.”Still, such guidance leaves gray areas for hospitals, Reding said, adding that she wants the corporation to prohibit ICE from entering facilities altogether. She’s also worried about the chilling effect on patient care.“Patients are going to delay care, whether they’re documented or undocumented,” Reding said. “That means, instead of controlling their diabetes and getting their regular doctor visits, they’re going to end up on my operating room table. Or if they have a bellyache that’s their appendix, they’re going to wait till it ruptures, and [that] can be lethal.”At a press conference Monday outside the hospital, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez said hospitals need stronger legal protections beyond current guidance. She announced new legislation, SB 81, co-sponsored with Sen. Jesse Arreguín that would ban healthcare providers from giving immigration agents access to private areas of medical facilities without a court-issued warrant. “Patients like Milagro deserve to receive medical care in a timely, safe and dignified manner, and free from the intimidation and fear of having agents sitting outside their hospital room,” Pérez said. “The Trump Administration’s fascist and aggressive attacks on our immigrant community and anyone exercising their constitutional rights to oppose them are wrong,” she said. “We will continue to stand up for these hardworking, innocent community members who are being targeted in these ongoing violent immigration raids taking place in my Senate district and across Los Angeles County.”Portillo’s situation is drawing anger from the immigrant’s rights community. At a rally outside the hospital Tuesday, Hoku Jeffrey, an organizer from immigrant rights coalition By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), said that public institutions should fight back against the “terrorizing” of immigrants on behalf of the Trump administration.“There needs to be public pressure applied to this hospital to make sure that they don’t just release [Portillo] and turn her over to ICE,” Jeffrey said. The Republican budget bill passed in Congress last week dramatically increases funding for immigration enforcement, including $170 billion for detention centers, more ICE personnel and border security.