My niece is physician practicing in Portland, OR. When she learned that a neighbor, who is usually well-informed, was unaware of the lawless and violent behavior of ICE agents, she began to record the injuries inflicted by ICE agents that she and colleagues have seen.

Her report is copied below.

Share this with people whom you think might not be aware of what’s our government is doing to citizens and the migrant workers who do so much of the labor in our country.

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A doctor’s report of injuries inflicted by ICE agents in Portland, OR.

I am working on collating stories from my partners at our family medicine clinic in Portland; we take care of wide variety of patients, including many immigrants and their families.  We have seen many first hand accounts of the terror of this ICE campaign.  Whereas in the past ICE activity was always feared by many of our patients, the activity is now intentionally to cause significant trauma. I think sharing stories can be very powerful.

Some examples we’ve seen from our patients:

-a dark-skinned US citizen pulled from his car at a traffic stop, beat up by ICE, attended to in the emergency room for facial fractures – seeing him in follow up in our clinic

-a young man my partner delivered 19 years ago, seen by my partner for a shoulder injury from an ICE encounter: he too was pulled from his car by masked men (after they cut his seat belt) for driving while looking Mexican, on his way to work.  He offered his ID, he was pulled out of the car, put in shackles, driven around for hours. They released him after hours once they realized he was a citizen and gave him a card to call to get help to repair his seatbelt.  However, when he called the number on the card, he was unable to supply names of the agents (bc names weren’t given and the men didn’t have names on their uniforms), and therefore ICE won’t take responsibility for the damages.  His shoulder was severely damaged such that a few wks later he still didn’t have proper function.

-my 66 year old patient in US for last 40 years, working the entire 40 years, unable to get his prostate imaging to start prostate cancer treatment bc ICE is patrolling the imaging centers (and being scolded by the specialist for being “noncompliant”)

-my US-born middle school patients missing school bc of ICE patrols all around the school for weeks on end (this is a very pervasive example for several schools on outer east side). 

-my 15 year old patient w insomnia and panic attacks bc both her parents are at risk for deportation

-my 19 year old patient who dropped out of his scholarship-funded first year of college to work to support his younger siblings after his father was deported.

-one of my medical assistants dealing with the grief of her children because their grandfather was just deported after raising his family here. He didn’t fight it, though: he told my medical assistant he was relieved to have a reason to leave this country that has become full of hatred and more racist than ever – he signed his agreement for deportation almost immediately after being detained.  I believe he had something on his record from 40 years ago and since then has worked and paid taxes.