Alarm and new rules after ICE hospital incident

L.A. County passes patient protections after agents stayed in detainee’s room 24/7.

- By CLauDIa Boyd-Barrett

ACTIVISTS protest in July at Glendale Memorial Hospital, where Milagro Solis-Portillo was being treated.

(CARLIN STIEHL Los Angeles Times)

In July, federal immigration agents took Milagro Solis-Portillo to Glendale Memorial Hospital just outside Los Angeles after she suffered a medical emergency while being detained. They didn't leave.

For two weeks, Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractors sat guard in the hospital lobby 24 hours a day, working in shifts to monitor her movements, her attorney Ming Tanigawa-Lau said.

ICE later transferred the Salvadoran woman to Anaheim Global Medical Center, against her doctor's orders and without explanation, her attorney said.

There, Tanigawa-Lau said, ICE agents were allowed to stay in Solis-Portillo’s hospital room around the clock, listening to what should have been private conversations with providers. Solis-Portillo told her attorney that agents pressured her to say she was well enough to leave the hospital, telling her she wouldn't be able to speak to her family or her attorney until she complied.

“She described it to me as feeling like she was being tortured,” Tanigawa-Lau said.

Concern about this incident and similar ones led the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this month to approve more protections for detainees at county-operated health facilities.

The county proposal — approved Nov. 18 with three supervisors in favor, one abstention and one absence — includes allowing patients to consent to the release of information to family members and legal counsel. It also directs staff to insist immigration agents leave the room at times to protect patient privacy.

Legal experts say ICE agents can be in public areas of a hospital, such as a lobby, and can accompany already-detained patients as they receive care, illustrating the scope of federal authority.