Migrants Are Increasingly Avoiding Seeking Health Services, Fearing Deportation: 'That Will Put Me In Their Radar'

President Donald Trump's mass deportation operations have led migrants to be detained in mundane places: at restaurants, mass transit, and even immigration appointments. The raids have left migrants vulnerable and scared, with some even avoiding going to hospitals for fear of being detained, and later deported, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Across the country, doctors, nurses and social workers have reported growing concerns that people with serious medical conditions, including injuries, chronic illnesses and high-risk pregnancies, are forgoing medical care out of fear of being apprehended by immigration officials, a new report from The New York Times reveals.

For instance, Emily Borghard, a social worker who hands out supplies to the homeless through her nonprofit, recently found a man laying on a New York City sidewalk with a gunshot wound. When she found him, she tried to call 911, but the man begged her "no, no, no," and not to make the call.

"He said, 'If I go to the emergency department, that will put me on their radar'," she recalled in an interview with the Times. The man's concerns came despite federal law requiring hospitals to treat patients, regardless of immigration status.

Likewise, Jim Mangia, president of St. John's Community Health Network in Los Angeles, described one patient with diabetes who stopped showing up for a weekly diabetes education class. When a clinic staff called the woman, they discovered she was afraid to even go to the grocery store, and had been subsisting for days on tortillas and coffee, he said.

"Thank God we reached her and she came in," said Mangia, whose network serves an estimated 25,000 undocumented patients across more than 20 locations. Tests at the clinic showed that her blood sugar had become dangerously high.

"That's what we're going to see more and more of," Mangia said. "It kind of breaks my heart to talk about it."

But the man is not the only one facing these concerns. In a recent survey conducted by KFF, a health policy research organization, 31% of immigrants said that worries about immigration status— their own or that of a family member— were negatively affecting their health. About 20% of all immigrants surveyed said they were struggling with their eating and sleeping; 31% reported worsened stress and anxiety.

Doctors say that the drop in migrant care is apparent. For instance, Dr. Amy Zeidan, an emergency room physician in Atlanta, said that requests for Spanish-language interpretation in her hospital's emergency department have fallen more than 60% from January to February.

If the trend continues, health care officials say, the list of consequences could be long: infectious diseases circulating unnecessarily; worsening health care costs because of untreated chronic illnesses; and dangerous birth complications for women who wait too long to seek help, among others. Research also shows that immigration crackdowns are linked with poorer birth outcomes and mental health status, lapses in care, and fewer people accessing the types of public programs that reduce illness and poverty overall.

"We're really creating not just very serious health risks, but economic risks in the long run for our country," Julie Linton, a pediatrician and member of the committee on federal government affairs for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told The Times. "These policies are creating very real fear and uncertainty for people and have a tremendous impact on their ability to function on a day-to-day level."

The Trump administration quickly dismantled a previous law that prevented undocumented migrants from being arrested at sensitive locations like schools, churches and hospitals when he returned to the White House, making these concerns even more real. The move reversed guidance that had been in place for over a decade that sought to provide some protections to the vulnerable community.

"This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens— including murderers and rapists— who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest," the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement back in January.