ICE is suddenly showing up in California hospitals. Workers want more guidance on what to do

This article highlights the need of SB 81 as it  would provide clear statewide protections and guidance by ensuring hospitals remain safe places for care. 

‘Yet immigration attorneys, advocates and health workers have expressed concerns over the handling of some of these cases, both by immigration officers and by some administrators at medical facilities. 

Specifically, they’re worried about the application of protocols like visitation rules, about threats to patients’ legal and privacy rights, and about risks to hospital workers themselves.  

“We have a level of privacy that we owe to patients and their families, and that has just been completely demolished with all of the involvement of ICE coming into hospitals,” said Kate Mobeen, an ICU nurse at John Muir Medical Center in Concord. “It creates just a huge sense of fear, not only in our patient population, but in our employee population and our nurses.”’

Read the full article CalMatters