ICE agents often ignore safety and privacy practices for detainee patients, Tacoma nurses say

Nurses at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma say that since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, they’ve seen many more ICE detainees come to the hospital as patients — always accompanied by two ICE agents acting as guards.

The nurses allege that these agents have repeatedly ignored practices safeguarding patients’ privacy, health, and safety, including by refusing to leave detainees’ rooms during catheter changes, shackling a detainee so tightly to a bed they caused nerve damage to the person’s hand, and refusing to wear required masks and gowns in rooms where patients had communicable diseases.

The nurses say they’ve asked hospital administrators to intervene, to no avail.

“I feel like [ICE agents] treat [detainees] like they’re animals,” one nurse said. KUOW agreed not to publish her name due to fears of professional retaliation.

“It makes me mad,” she added. “They’re running the show when it comes to these patients. They’re in our house; they should follow our rules.”