Judge Blocks ICE Policy

 Federal officials have stalked an undocumented landscaper into a surgery facility, guarded detained patients—sometimes in shackles—in hospital rooms, and set up camp in the lobby of a Southern California hospital in recent months. Additionally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have visited neighborhood clinics. According to medical professionals, police have pulled a bystander into an unmarked car outside a community health facility, attempted to enter a parking lot housing a mobile clinic, and flashed a machine gun in the faces of doctors working with the homeless. 

Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom last month signed SB 81, which forbids medical facilities from allowing federal agents without a valid search warrant or court order into private areas, including locations where patients receive treatment or discuss health issues, in response to such immigration enforcement activity in and around clinics and hospitals.

Legal experts assert that California cannot prevent federal authorities from performing their duties in public areas, such as hospital lobbies and general waiting areas, health facility parking lots, and surrounding neighborhoods—places where recent ICE activities have caused outrage and fear—despite the bill’s widespread support from medical organizations, healthcare professionals, and immigrant rights advocates. The Trump administration lifted earlier federal prohibitions on immigration enforcement in or around sensitive locations, such as medical facilities, in January.