13 Aug Hospital Incident Spurs Push to End ICE Collaboration in Contra Costa

At Tuesday’s Contra Costa Board of Supervisors meeting, people advocated for a county ordinance to prevent the sheriff’s department from cooperating with immigration officials. The sign on the left reads, in English, “Immigrant rights are human rights.”

Story and photos by Denis Perez-Bravo

Healthcare workers joined community advocates Tuesday in urging Contra Costa County supervisors to halt sheriff cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, citing a recent incident in which U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents denied hospital staff access to a detained patient.

Dozens of people rallied outside the Martinez government center before dozens spoke on the sheriff’s oversight report during the Board of Supervisors meeting.

 

The push comes two weeks after ICE agents brought an unresponsive detainee to John Muir Health Concord Medical Center, denied his family information about his condition, and “snuck him off to an ICE detention facility,” according to Dr. Douglas Yoshida, an emergency physician at Stanford Tri-Valley Medical Center.

“Healthcare worker intimidation has been used for decades by authoritarian regimes,” Yoshida said at the outside rally. “Federal law actually allows information to be given to the family if the patient consents, even if they’re incarcerated.”

 

Yoshida drew parallels between the treatment of undocumented immigrants today and his own family’s experience during Japanese American internment in World War II. His father, then 15, was denied access to see his mother for weeks while she had cancer.

“I’m here today to ask the Board of Supervisors, as supporters of democracy, to stand up against dictatorship and speak up for immigrants, diversity and compassion” Yoshida said. “Please adopt a non-cooperation ordinance against ICE. Do not let history keep on repeating itself.”

Nurses Call for Changes

 

Yoshida was joined by John Muir Health workers from Concord who, in red shirts, stood in solidarity with their patients.

“Our patients should never be forced to forgo life-saving treatment because our government has made our workplace sites of harm and terror,” said Katelyn Mobeen, a registered nurse at John Muir in Concord.

 

Mobeen outlined specific protections nurses want to see: policies preventing staff from disclosing patient immigration status and shielding healthcare workers from retaliation for refusing to assist immigration enforcement.

“No nurse or staff members will face retaliation, discipline or dismissal for advocating on behalf of a patient with undocumented status or refusing to participate in actions that may harm such patients,” she said.

Sheriff Defends Current Policy

Sheriff David Livingston said the department has notified ICE about 55 individuals this year. That is out of 293 requests for notification from ICE, or close to 19%. The department has received more notification requests from the federal agency than last year but fulfilled a lower percentage.

In 2024, the department made 70 notifications to ICE out of 274 requests, nearly 26%.

Livingston said the department is following state law; it notifies ICE when the suspect has a high-level criminal background.

 

But District 4 Supervisor Ken Carlson, a former police officer, questioned the value of the policy saying that the county was not gaining anything from notifying ICE of these cases.

“Why report at all?” Carlson asked during Livingston’s presentation.

He said because some public rhetoric that called a non-compliance order a pathway to letting criminals out on the streets was heard in a previous meeting, he wanted to bring up the fact that serious offenders who are white that have done their time are released into the public.

And he believes that undocumented people should have that right too.

Advocates Cite Erosion of Trust

Advocates said even limited ICE cooperation undermines community trust. Raul Arana of United Latino Voices called the recent hospital incident “a painful reminder that ICE is allowed to operate fiercely in our county.”

“When our sheriff collaborates with them, it destroys the trust we’ve built,” Arana said.

 

United Latino Voices, along with Monument Impact, Reimagine Richmond, Indivisible Resisters and the Faith Alliance for a Moral Economy will continue to pressure supervisors to adopt an ordinance that would bar the sheriff’s department from complying with ICE notification requests, absent any court orders.

No timeline has been set as of now.

Arana said the uncertainty of life for an undocumented immigrant is constant, and that is why he works to support families who live in fear.

And fighting for a non-compliance ordinance is a way to give families some peace of mind.

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department has not yet responded to a request for comment on this public action and the possibility of a county-wide non-compliance ordinance. This story will be updated if The Pulse receives that response.