{"id":214995,"date":"2026-02-18T14:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/ice-agents-often-ignore-safety-and-privacy-practices-for-detainee-patients-tacoma-nurses-say\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:20:10","slug":"ice-agents-often-ignore-safety-and-privacy-practices-for-detainee-patients-tacoma-nurses-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/ice-agents-often-ignore-safety-and-privacy-practices-for-detainee-patients-tacoma-nurses-say\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE agents often ignore safety and privacy practices for detainee patients, Tacoma nurses say"},"content":{"rendered":"

ICE agents often ignore safety and privacy practices for detainee patients, Tacoma nurses say<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.kuow.org\/stories\/ice-agents-often-ignore-safety-and-privacy-practices-for-detainee-patients-tacoma-nurses-say<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-18 14:53:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.kuow.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Nurses at St. Joseph\u2019s Medical Center in Tacoma say that since the beginning of President Donald Trump\u2019s second term, they\u2019ve seen many more ICE detainees come to the hospital as patients \u2014 always accompanied by two ICE agents acting as guards.<\/p>\n

The nurses allege that these agents have repeatedly ignored practices safeguarding patients\u2019 privacy, health, and safety, including by refusing to leave detainees\u2019 rooms during catheter changes, shackling a detainee so tightly to a bed they caused nerve damage to the person\u2019s hand, and refusing to wear required masks and gowns in rooms where patients had communicable diseases.<\/p>\n

The nurses say they\u2019ve asked hospital administrators to intervene, to no avail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like [ICE agents] treat [detainees] like they\u2019re animals,\u201d one nurse said. KUOW agreed not to publish her name due to fears of professional retaliation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes me mad,\u201d she added. \u201cThey\u2019re running the show when it comes to these patients. They\u2019re in our house; they should follow our rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nurses KUOW interviewed for this article \u2014 one medical and surgical nurse, and a union representative for all the nurses at the hospital \u2014 say the agents guarding these patients are creating safety hazards for patients and others, and are making it impossible for the detainees to receive safe, dignified care.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Washington lawmakers want to restrict ICE access to schools, health facilities<\/strong><\/p>\n

The nurses say they want, at the very least, hospital administrators or Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which owns the hospital, to clarify what the policies and procedures are for ICE agents, especially when there\u2019s a disagreement between the agents and the frontline care staff.<\/p>\n

But their asks go further than that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I think most nurses want to see is \u2026 ICE out of our hospitals,\u201d said Jared Richardson, a nurse and union organizer for the Washington State Nurses Association. \u201cWe think…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ICE agents often ignore safety and privacy practices for detainee patients, Tacoma nurses say https:\/\/www.kuow.org\/stories\/ice-agents-often-ignore-safety-and-privacy-practices-for-detainee-patients-tacoma-nurses-say…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":214996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/kuow-prod.imgix.net\/store\/e9a698259e2686f30912722188e7145f.jpg?fm=jpg&fit=max&w=1200&h=628&q=80","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-214995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214997,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214995\/revisions\/214997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}