Stony Brook Medicine: Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs court order for access

Stony Brook Medicine has directed faculty and staff to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents facility access only after the health system’s legal counsel has validated their warrant or subpoena.

The move comes in response to President Donald Trump's efforts since his return to the White House to deport millions of immigrants in the United States illegally. In doing so, Trump has reversed policies that had for years restricted enforcement in locations like hospitals, churches and schools.

"Local hospital staff should not provide access to hospital patient care areas or medical record areas," an email sent Friday from Stony Brook Medicine to faculty and staff reads. "Please ask the authorities to have a seat in a designated waiting area, and a representative will come by to speak with them shortly ... The ICE agents will not be permitted access to the hospital or its records, or to engage in any enforcement activities (arrests, searches, interrogations) in the hospital without presenting a valid judicial warrant (order signed by a federal judge or magistrate)."

Fears of enforcement

The email underscores the stakes of the Trump administration's mass deportation plan. Experts say ICE enforcement at hospitals has been rare, but it is unclear if the stepped-up deportation efforts will lead to more enforcement at those or other health care facilities.

Immigrant and health care advocates have warned that the prospect of arrest and deportation at those sites will scare people from getting medical treatment. Religious leaders told Newsday last month they feared the policy change would drive people away from in-person worship services, and leaders of Long Island’s largest food banks have said some clients are scared to pick up food.

Stony Brook University spokesperson Kelly Drossel declined an interview but emailed a statement on behalf of university officials: "We are in the process of developing full guidance for campus facilities as it relates to federal immigration enforcement. Stony Brook Medicine released preliminary guidance following questions from staff, and we expect full guidance from the SUNY system in the coming weeks." 

A spokeswoman for the SUNY system did not comment.

Rescinding Biden policy

A Jan. 20 Department of Homeland Security memo announcing rescission of the Biden-era protected area policy directed ICE agents to use "discretion and a healthy dose of common sense" about where they conduct their operations. In a news release a day later, the agency said the policy change would empower immigration officers to "catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists."

In an email, Jeffrey Reynolds, CEO of Garden City-based Family & Children’s Association, a human services agency whose clients include immigrants, said the Stony Brook guidance was reassuring but perhaps not enough to "get folks to take any chances unless they are experiencing a life-or-death emergency ... Even when we explain to folks that they are here legally and there’s nothing to worry about, they are skeptical and ask us how we can be so sure."

A staffer at the Patchogue-based Latina advocacy group, Sepa Mujer, on a recent outreach visit to a health care clinic serving immigrant communities, noticed it was far emptier than usual, said CEO Martha Maffei.

"The nurses told her that people had canceled their appointments," Maffei said. "There is a lot of fear, especially for people who have just arrived."

Representatives for ICE did not answer emailed questions about their enforcement actions in formerly protected areas on Long Island. A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Trish Driscoll, said in an email that agency personnel "will apply enforcement discretion to balance a variety of interests, including the degree to which any law enforcement action occurs in a sensitive location, and regarding what law enforcement actions may be taken."

Forms of guidance 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection representatives have said agents would need supervisor approval before acting in sensitive locations and that those occasions are expected to be extremely rare. 

Newsday has previously reported that an industry group, the Greater New York Hospital Association, sent guidance to members that was broadly in line with what Stony Brook Medicine leaders circulated internally.

Representatives for other area health systems did not respond to interview requests or declined to comment, though some have circulated their own guidance to staff. In a video NYC Health + Hospitals/Kings County posted on YouTube on Jan. 23, Dr. Diahann Singh, that system’s director for risk management, instructed staff to ask agents for their name or badge number before calling one of several administrative numbers for assistance.

"If the officer insists on proceeding, please do not intervene," Singh said. "If the officer gives you the name of the person they are here to see, please do not inform that person. That is against the law and is subject to prosecution."

On Monday, Crain’s New York Business reported that NYU Langone circulated its own guidance.

Matthew Lopas, director of state advocacy & technical assistance at the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center, said the enforcement policy change had coincided with an apparent "uptick in presence" in recent weeks by immigration authorities in areas frequented by immigrants.

"They’re showing up in areas near schools ... people who have gone in for routine check-ins [with immigration authorities] are finding themselves in deportation. Raids are happening," Lopas said.

He said that Stony Brook’s guidance appeared sound and grounded in constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

Those protections "aren’t just there for immigrants, they are there for all their patients who may not want law enforcement searching confidential patient records and entering patient examination rooms," he said.