Immigrants need not worry if they or their loved ones need to go to Kings County Hospital that federal agents will swoop in searching for illegal or undocumented immigrants. And that goes for all the public hospitals in the city.
That was the takeaway from last night’s NYC Health and Hospitals panel discussion entitled “Immigrant Health Care Rights.”
“We want to get out the word that ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents) has not been to our facility [Kings County Hospital]. More importantly that the hospital will never share immigration status with authorities,” said Sheldon McLeod, Chief Operating Officer of Kings County Hospital. “This is a safe haven. I spoke to a patient, who told us she saw ICE. When I spoke to her directly, I asked her did they [ICE] approach you. And she said well, no, they didn’t. Someone told her this [ICE was at Kings County Hospital] and she repeated the story.”
The news was welcome relief to roughly 60 immigrants in attendance, including a good number of Haitians as the event included interpretation in Creole.
The 627-bed facility at 451 Clarkson Avenue between Albany Avenue and East 37th Street serves Central Brooklyn, East New York-New Lots, and Flatbush – including the City’s largest Caribbean immigrant community. Last year the hospital saw 518,076 clinic visits and 141,328 Emergency Room (ER) visits while delivering 2, 403 babies.
The forum was an opportunity for immigrants of all backgrounds to get the correct information regarding health services available to them from city agencies. The events main message was to let immigrants know ICE does not use hospital or insurance information to deport immigrants.
ICE policies state:
- ICE agents should avoid stopping, searching, or arresting immigrants at hospitals, health clinics, or doctors’ offices
- ICE agents will not use immigration information provided to enroll in health insurance under ACA/Obamacare to hold and deport immigrants
ALSO:
- Federal Law (HIPPA) keeps your protected health information confidential
- New York State Law policies limit state agencies disclosure of immigration information in the federal government
- New York City policies limit when city employees should ask you about your immigration status and when they should disclose that information
- Health & Hospitals policies limit asking about you immigration status and when that information should be disclosed
The panel came in the wake of President Trump’s reformed immigration rules, allowing ICE agents a broader jurisdiction when dealing with “criminal aliens.” Some of the changes include publicizing crimes by undocumented immigrants, stripping immigrants of privacy protections, enlisting local police officers as enforcers, erecting new detention facilities, discouraging asylum seekers, speeding up deportations, increasing border patrol agents and building wall across the southern border with Mexico.
“I think unfortunately, number 45 [President Trump] has made life extremely hard for our immigrant population patients. They are afraid because he built his entire campaign and his current presidency on the fact that he’s going to build a wall. A wall is a symbol of, not only Mexicans and Central Americans and South Americans, but any immigrant population he feels is not representative of his United States,” said McLeod.
John Jurenko, Vice President of Government Community Relations for New York City Health and Hospitals, said what is true for Kings County Hospital holds true at all the City hospitals. .
There are a lot of rumors in the community right now about potential actions for immigrants and people are afraid of coming out, people are afraid of accessing care. We organized these forums to explain to people, what are your rights, the fact that they are safe accessing healthcare services, the fact that their information is safe with us, we don’t disclose it to anyone else. We are really interested in their healthcare not their status,” said Jurenko.
