NEW YORK.- Migrant families fear receiving medical care due to the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agentslike the case of Daniel, whose name was changed for his safety, who had a work injury and decided to temporarily suspend his medical care.
“It scared me,” he said. “My wife pressured me and I also had to go because of the pain,” he acknowledged when delving into the reasons why he finally agreed to receive medical attention. He is originally from Puebla, Mexico, but has lived in Queens, New York for more than 10 years.
Daniel is undocumented, he works in construction and remembers that at the beginning of the Trump administration he saw ICE agents hanging around points where workers go. to wait for someone to hire them. His wife is American, but now they don’t know if they will be able to move forward with their process for the Inexperienced Card.
“UnidosUS Affiliates serving local Hispanic communities frequently report that Entire families avoid medical care for fear that ICE agents may show up at hospitals or clinics and proceed with arrests based on their appearance or way of speaking,” stated the UnidosUS report.
This information is additional to a March 2026 report, carried out by KFF –a specialized health agency– on the impact of President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda among immigrants.
“President Trump’s increased immigration control measures have contributed to generating a mighty fear and uncertainty among the immigrant communitywhich can negatively impact the health and well-being of immigrant families and make them more reluctant to access health care and coverage,” the report states. “Various research shows that these fears can have lifelong negative consequences for children’s physical and mental health.”
UnidosUs also takes up a report from Fresh York Times which revealed the growing fear among immigrants, due to current immigration policies.
In general terms, according to the report, due to fear, people eligible for Medicaid decided to leave, increasing the percentage of people who gave up health insurance from 11 to 18%.
In addition to ICE operations, other immigration actions pay fear of requesting medical services, such as the so-called “public charge”implemented by the Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency.
“Other policies of the Trump administration have eroded health access,” said UnidosUs in an exclusive Op-Ed for this newspaper. “The indiscriminate application of immigration lawsthe sharing of Medicaid records with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and public charge regulations have generated a profound deterrent effect.”
USCIS currently has a new public charge rule under review, so it continues to apply the one approved in 2022, which limits immigration benefits mainly to immigrants who receive economic social assistance and add various types of constant support, such as SNAP or housing vouchers. Under this rule, officials reviewing visa or green card applications can decide at their discretion whether a person could become a burden on the treasury.
Economic decline in the United States
In addition to President Trump’s immigration actions, his economic policies also have a negative impact among immigrant parents, the KFF report indicates.
“About half (52%) of immigrant parents say they have found it more difficult to earn a living since January 2025,” it says. “More than half (55%) report having had problems paying for medical carehousing or food in the last 12 months, percentages that have increased since 2023″.
The economic effects are greater among families with children, since among those who do not have children, forty five% say that it has been more difficult for them to earn a living and 42% report problems paying for medical care, housing or food, the KFF report indicated.
Children of immigrants are afraid
The fear of mass deportation policies not only affects the undocumented, but also their American children.
“About a quarter of immigrant parents (27%), including six in ten (60%) undocumented immigrant parents, say that Have any of your children expressed concerns about the possibility of something bad happening to a family member because they are an immigrant?“, it is added.
18% of immigrant parents “state that their children’s well-being has been affected” by fear of immigration policies.
Daniel says that, for now, his children are not afraid, but he justifies that they are still young – the youngest is three years old and the oldest is six years old – to understand what is happening with ICE and his father’s immigration situation.
Immigrant detained in effectively being facility in New York
Last May 2, Chidozie Wilson Okeke was forcibly removed from Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in the Bushwick neighborhoodin Brooklyn, by ICE agents in the middle of a crowd protesting his arrest and the intervention of the NYPD.
A local group that tracks immigration agents’ vehicles apparently followed them to the facility, where dozens of people gathered.
The immigration agents took the man out of the facility, where he had been taken, after his arrest, amid struggles, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He was taken for a medical evaluation, where he would have had a more aggressive twister, although he was later discharged.
Okeke had previously been arrested on charges of assault and drug possession, and had remained in the country on an expired tourist visa, according to DHS.
The case fueled the debate about ICE operations in hospitals, considered “sensitive places,” but which under the new administration are no longer considered prohibitive for immigration arrests, as has happened around schools, religious centers, courts, and other spaces.
