January 1, Catholic Hospital Trains Staff Against ICE Actions

Wyatt’s Take

• A top Catholic hospital system trained staff on handling ICE encounters.
• Staff were told to be wary of law enforcement during the training.
• Some medical leaders warn this crosses into political activism.

A large Catholic health system taught employees ways to be uncooperative with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during a virtual training for staff. The session explained strategies to help staff better advocate for immigrant patients and outlined steps to take when confronted by ICE, according to reviewed documents and a recorded meeting.

The training was called “Providence Women and Children’s Virtual Grand Rounds: Know Your Rights with ICE,” featuring Erin McKee from the Oregon Justice Resource Center. She guided staff to use a “Don’t Trust, Don’t Talk, Don’t Consent” approach if approached by law enforcement.

“When ICE is after you or your friends or family and you don’t want to help them, right? You’re not obligated to do that,” McKee said during the meeting.

She further explained, “If you think ICE is after you or your friends and family and you don’t want to help, your mindset should be don’t trust. They might not be telling you the truth. And ICE, ICE will often lie in order to get someone to move from maybe a private protected space to a public space where they can lawfully arrest them.”

McKee made fun of ICE paperwork, saying, “A paper that says, ‘Dear me, you can do whatever you want. Signed me.’ And then they’re like, ‘See, this paper says I can do whatever I want.’”

If staff see ICE agents, McKee urged them to call the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition hotline for a rapid response. “And what happens is if you witness or observe ICE enforcement activity or suspected ICE enforcement activity, you call the hotline. PIRC will send a volunteer to that location to verify whether it is, in fact, ICE activity,” she explained.

Dr. Kurt Miceli warned against turning hospital trainings into political activism. “Grand Rounds have long been dedicated to clinical, medical, and scientific topics that directly advance patient care and research, not to political activism. The profession’s core responsibility is to care for patients, and presenting politically oriented content as Grand Rounds risks weakening professional focus, compromising institutional neutrality, and diminishing trust in the educational mission,” said Miceli.

At the start of the session, Providence’s senior director Kara Johnson spoke about the pain and fear caused by recent federal immigration enforcement and the deaths of two anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis. “I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the deep pain, fear and grief being felt across our communities in light of the recent escalation and federal immigration enforcement activity and the tragic fatal shootings of Renee [Good] and Alex [Pretti] in Minnesota,” Johnson stated.

Johnson noted, “These events have sent shock waves through immigrant communities and all who care about justice and safety. Many of our patients, our colleagues, and our neighbors are carrying heavy trauma right now.”

McKee said, “Obviously federal agents are violating rights. We are watching it on TV. We are seeing them completely disregard the Constitution, any type of norms that have applied in law enforcement situations.”

Neither Providence Health nor Erin McKee commented on the meeting when asked.

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Wyatt Matters

Healthcare should be about helping people, not picking political sides. Folks in Middle America know the dangers when big institutions step away from their core mission. Trust and fairness matter to everyday Americans.

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