As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to target the Boston area as part of Operation Patriot 2.0, the surge in arrests is also leading to an increase in reported ICE sightings at local hospitals.
There is no evidence that federal immigration agents are going to hospitals to initiate arrests, but their presence at the facilities has caused anxiety among some staff, patients and families.
Agents brought a detainee to the emergency room at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Needham on Thursday evening, sparking a number of tips to an immigration hotline from staff and community members.
A log shared with GBH News by a volunteer with the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of MA, a coalition of groups that work to verify ICE activity across the state, notes that one hospital employee who called said there were two agents with the detainee, who was reportedly brought in for a medical reason. ”Caller stated many staff/patients are nervous,” the log read.
Other staff members at the hospital reported and photographed unattended vehicles with ICE markings in the parking lot Thursday night through Friday morning, according to additional reports to LUCE.
Hospital administrators say federal immigration agents bringing someone in for treatment isn’t necessarily new.
“As an acute care hospital, we take care of all patients, including individuals detained by correctional agencies,” said a Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital-Needham spokesperson. “Due to patient privacy laws, we cannot comment on any individual patient’s care.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security identified the man they brought to Beth Israel Deaconess as Evelio Reyes-Carmona, describing him as from El Salvador and in the country illegally.
“At the time of his arrest, Reyes-Carmona was severely intoxicated and experienced medical complications believed to be due to the large amount of alcohol in his system,” the statement read. “ICE immediately took him to the hospital to receive proper medical care.”
LUCE volunteer Martha Durkee-Neuman, who took in the initial call about the Needham hospital, said the reports they’re fielding now remind her of the massive ICE operation in May.
“This was a pattern in May during the last surge, and LUCE got a lot of reports of ICE-related violence and ICE agents going into hospitals to take folks to medical care, and that’s really freaking out the staff and patients,” Durkee-Neuman said.
“We have gotten multiple calls at ICE outside of hospitals going in,” she said. “Accompanying people to appointments, things like that.”
On Wednesday, the husband of a Greater Boston Legal Services attorney was detained by ICE and brought to a Melrose Wakefield Hospital. In that scenario, Leslie Perlera Gonzalez said her husband, Edgar Hernan Elias Escobar, spent about 90 minutes at the hospital before being transferred to ICE processing in Burlington.
DHS said he wasn’t found to have a medical issue from an examination. Perlera Gonzalez countered that and said it was unlikely her husband could have had proper blood work and a neurological examination in such a short amount of time.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, Malden Mayor Gary Christenson, state Sen. Jason Lewis and a number of other elected officials issued a public statement on Friday calling for his release.
“Hernan works as a roofer the Greater Boston area, helps care for his aging mother,” the letter reads. “He is a contributing member of the community and his detention is unnecessary for any immigration proceeding. There is no reason he should have been targeted.”
