Maria Kallmeyer Quoted in Law360 Article About Impact of Trump Immigration Policy on Hospitals
Maria Kallmeyer, national co-chair of the Quarles & Brady Immigration & Mobility Practice Group, was quoted in a Law360 story about how a recent change in federal immigration policy could impact hospitals.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently revoked a 2021 policy that restricted immigration enforcement at locations such as hospitals, churches and schools. The change in policy means federal agents are allowed to enforce immigration laws wherever they deem appropriate.
Kallmeyer, based in the firm’s Chicago office, said hospitals will need to think carefully about what this means for how patients are treated.
An excerpt:
The guidance applied to enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents. Protected medical areas included hospitals, doctor's offices, health clinics, vaccination or testing sites, urgent care centers and community health centers.
Maria Kallmeyer, a Chicago-based partner at Quarles & Brady LLP and national co-chair of its immigration and mobility group, said the goal was to ensure people felt comfortable seeking care, regardless of their immigration status.
Hospitals "are places where we generally want people to feel safe, and people don't feel safe if they're afraid that they're going to get picked up by ICE because they went to the doctor," she said.
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Kallmeyer said ICE agents can generally go anywhere considered a public location, and there's not much a hospital can do about it. Administrators may want to consider which areas of the hospital would be considered public.
"Can ICE just sort of walk into the hospital and look for people in the waiting room? Yes, they probably can do that," Kallmeyer said.
But they wouldn't necessarily be entitled to visit, say, a patient exam room without permission.