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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have created a crisis in Minneapolis hospitals since escalating anti-immigrant operations in the Minnesota city in early December.

Health care workers who spoke to Truthout report that the number of agents in hospitals has risen sharply since the beginning of the year, with ailing or injured detainees regularly brought into emergency departments at multiple city hospitals at all hours, including overnight. Meanwhile, workers told Truthout that those federal agents have intimidated hospital staff and disregarded federal law, medical best practices, and hospital policies, often with limited pushback from hospital administrators. Where administrators have seemed reluctant to intervene, however, rank-and-file health care workers are stepping up to protect their colleagues and their patients — thanks to organizing and training efforts that began long before agents descended on the Twin Cities.

“This is a human rights crisis that we will be talking about for years to come in health care and what happened in these hospitals, and at the same time, grassroots organizing is the only thing that has prepared us to begin to respond,” Jamey Sharp, an area health care worker and member of the health justice committee at immigrant advocacy organization Unidos MN, told Truthout.

Several high-profile cases of ICE agents violating patient rights in Minneapolis hospitals have already made headlines.

Several high-profile cases of ICE agents violating patient rights in Minneapolis hospitals have already made headlines. On December 31, 2025, agents entered the Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) Emergency Department without a valid judicial warrant in an attempt to detain a patient receiving care. The agents reportedly remained by the patient’s bedside for over 24 hours, denied their right to family visitation, and, at times, shackled them. The agents left after hospital security “asked for documentation to support their continued presence,” according to a statement from the hospital.

Additional reports have since surfaced of agents shackling at least one other patient in the same hospital, even after health care workers confronted them. Workers at three other area hospitals who spoke to Truthout on condition of anonymity described daily ICE presence on their campuses, as well as multiple cases of agents seemingly guarding patients at their bedsides and violating their rights to have private medical conversations with their care teams.

“I don’t think anyone could have expected the onslaught of ICE agents descending on our metro the way that it has,” Alycia Garubanda, an acute rehab therapist at another Minneapolis hospital, told Truthout. “But we’ve adjusted to meet the moment.”

For many health care workers across the metro area, meeting the moment has meant drawing on knowledge gained from “know........

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