United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not targeting illegal immigrants inside a medical facility or religious facility, despite concerns that the Trump administration would do so after the rollback of a Biden-era policy earlier this year.
While recent reports have suggested that ICE and other federal law enforcement have gone into hospitals and churches to find and arrest immigrants who are illegally residing in the U.S., the agency said that although employees are allowed to make arrests at those sites, they have not done so.
“Allegations of so-called enforcement at a medical facility or church have been false,” an ICE official authorized to speak with the media wrote in an email.
ICE personnel did arrest a Honduran landscaper inside the Ontario Advanced Surgery Center in Southern California in early July; however, officials did not seek the landscaper out at the facility and only entered the hospital while in pursuit of the man, according to the official.
“A viral video from Los Angeles indicated ICE arrested a man at a medical center while he was getting treatment. This was totally false. He was encountered while driving and ran to evade officers, fleeing to a medical building down the road,” the ICE official said.
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