From NBC Boston
A group of health care professionals joined a weekly rally outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center in Burlington Wednesday, airing concerns about the impact of immigration enforcement on their industry.
Doctors, nurses and immigrant advocates demanded an end to immigration raids, saying they are disrupting patient care and creating fear among immigrant health care workers.
“The way that ICE is persecuting and prosecuting immigrants in our country is shameful,” said Trina Portillo, a local Presbyterian minister who joined the protest.
Health care providers at the rally said the effects of immigration enforcement are seen in their clinics and hospitals.
Physicians are also witnessing a decline in patients seeking care. Dr. Scott Gilbert, a physician with Atrius Health, said fear is keeping people away from routine checkups and emergency services alike.
“Patients are supposed to come for a yearly physical,” he said. “They’re not. Or they’re sick and elderly, and they’re not coming in.”
Gilbert drew parallels between what some immigrants are experiencing now with ICE and what his mother and her childhood friend Anne Frank faced during the Holocaust: “The ICE Gestapo in the thousands just picking people up during the day, covering [their face] with masks — that’s no different than what my mom and millions of others experienced in the Hitler and Nazi period.”