Arizona hospital lets ICE terrorize immigrants

The University of Arizona Medical Center (UMC), Tucson’s only tier-one trauma center, is working closely with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make life for undocumented workers even worse. The hospital has a stated policy of “100 percent compliance with all law enforcement agencies.” That is the excuse for engaging in a series of practices that target the Latin@ community, particularly the undocumented.

The southern Arizona border is the entry point for immigrants from Central and South America driven from their homes by extreme need and desperately seeking a means of subsistence for themselves and their families. The U.S. government spent billions of dollars in the 1980s crushing revolutionary movements and keeping the elites in power there.

The desert areas the immigrants are funneled into are unforgiving to those forced to travel through them. Besides the heat and dangerous terrain that most immigrants are unprepared for, they face more danger from the increasing presence of Border Patrol agents.

The Border Patrol has been engaging in high-speed chases in pursuit of vehicles, often ending with the chased vehicle losing control and crashing. One recent incident involved 19 Salvadorans packed into a van. Border Patrol agents chased the vehicle until it rolled over. The Border Patrol then notified the Arizona Highway Patrol, which responded to the accident and transported the victims to the closest trauma center, UMC, where nine of them were pronounced dead.

The BP agents later showed up at UMC’s emergency room and demanded they be notified when any surviving patients were released. UMC compliance means that patients are sent from the emergency room to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Center, where they are coerced into either signing voluntary deportation papers or being charged with a criminal offense.

ER personnel at UMC—whose job is to provide health care, not act as a repressive arm of the state—are consistently providing details of patient releases to the Border Patrol. According to a worker in the emergency room, doctors and nurses are contacting DHS on their own and volunteering information about patients.

In addition, UMC has a policy of reporting to the DHS foreign nationals who haven’t paid their hospital bills. In turn, a collection agency hired by UMC to collect the debts threatens to call Immigration if a payment is not made. These threats are made without regard to the person’s actual legal status.

Patients have also reported instances of ICE agents entering their hospital rooms and harassing them. In at least one case, they handcuffed a patient to the bed. Recently, an 8-year-old Mexican girl visiting relatives in Tucson developed appendicitis; her parents rushed her to UMC. The father, a miner in Cananea, Mexico, makes $100 per week. He was told the surgery would cost $98,000 and that UMC expected payment when the patient was released. The usual cost of an appendectomy is around $8,000. When confronted, UMC officials said the $98,000 figure was “an outlier” and that only under the most extenuating of circumstances would an appendectomy cost that much. But, for a person who makes $100 per week, even $8,000 is an impossible amount to pay.

Tucson immigrant rights activists have been advising people against going to UMC for health care. UMC cooperation with Homeland Security increases the presence of ICE agents in and around the ER. They are essentially denying health care to the Latin@ community, terrorizing them by allowing ICE agents into the hospital and threatening to call ICE if a bill isn’t paid.

The increased presence of ICE agents in the community, at schools and hospitals, is part of the militarization of the border. We must unite and demand that ICE get out of our communities and that the racist attacks and deportations end.