Advocating on Behalf of Patients in Immigration Custody: What Clinicians Need to Know

Wednesday, July 8 | Held online via Zoom | 7:00pm ET / 6:00pm CT / 5:00pm MT / 4:00pm PT (90 minutes) 

Immigration enforcement is increasingly reaching into hospitals and clinics across the United States. Clinicians are caring for patients who arrive accompanied by, and in the custody of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP). For many clinicians, this raises urgent and unfamiliar questions: Can I ask an officer to leave the room during an examination? Can I contact a patient’s family? Who decides when a patient is well enough to be discharged? Can I ask for shackles to be removed?  

This webinar, the first in a two-part series, launches alongside the National Immigration Law Center’s new guidance, Advocating on Behalf of Patients in Immigration Custody. Co-hosted by Physicians for Human Rights, the National Immigration Law Center, the Society of Asylum Medicine, and the Midwest Human Rights Consortium, the webinar will focus on the rights and responsibilities of clinicians treating patients in immigration custody, both in hospital and outpatient settings. Panelists will work through practical strategies for protecting patient privacy under HIPAA and the Fourth Amendment.  

Drawing on the recommendations in the guidance from the authors and clinicians’ own direct experience, speakers will discuss what to do — and what not to do — when an officer accompanies a patient into their care, and how to work with your institutions to build policies and practices that protect patients and staff. There will be 30 mins allotted for Q&A.  

This session is for clinicians and health care staff in hospitals and other care settings who have or may interact with ICE or CBP in the course of patient care, as well as any clinician committed to upholding their patients’ rights and promoting their health. 

The webinar will be moderated by Katherine McKenzie, MD, FACP, faculty member at Yale School of Medicine, director of the Yale Center for Asylum Medicine, co-founder and co-director of the Society of Asylum Medicine, and PHR Board Member  

Panelists include:  

Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, Senior Policy Counsel, NILC (guidance co-author) 

Matthew Lopas, Director of State Advocacy and Technical Assistance, NILC (guidance co-author) 

Amy Zeidan, MD, Associate Professor at Emory University School of Medicine and Emergency Medicine specialist at Grady Memorial Hospital. 

Amy Blair, MD, Professor of Family Medicine, Loyola University Chicago 

Register via Zoom here.