I did my residency in pediatrics at the University of Minnesota hospitals and clinics, doing rotations at hospitals spread over St. Paul and Minneapolis. I cycled all over the city, windsurfed on the five lakes within the city, enjoyed Prince at the First Avenue nightclub, and skied around Powderhorn Park, the neighborhood where I lived. I cared for very ill children in a bone marrow ward at the university hospital, kids with disabilities at Gillette Children’s Hospital, learned clinical hypnosis from my mentors Dan Kohen and Karen Olness, and tended to immigrants from all over the world who viewed “the cities” as a welcoming escape from repression abroad, at public hospitals like the Hennepin County Medical Center.
So, at the height of the reign of terror of ICE in Minneapolis, I was moved by the press conference at HCMC of physicians who spoke of the impact of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) actions on medical care. Masked agents had been breaking all previous norms of law enforcement by not only guarding rooms of patients caught in their dragnet, but coming into those rooms, interfering with patient interviews, and intimidating doctors and nursing staff. Visits to area clinics have decreased dramatically, high risk pregnant people have been choosing home births, and patients chronic illnesses have been avoiding care rather than face detention or worse. The doctors said the situation is worse than they faced during the Covid pandemic.
What have been the health effects of the mass detentions and raids by ICE in the first year of the Trump administration?
The worst health outcome, of course is death. Last year there were 32 deaths in ICE facilities, triple 2024’s number. The causes included heart failure, stroke, respiratory failure, TB, and suicide — mostly preventable, according to experts.
During the first month of 2026, there were already five deaths of people in custody. One of them was Gerald Lunas Campos. A father of four, he was detained in a center in El Paso, Texas. The initial government report was that he was restrained for causing a commotion; a later account stated that he was “saved from attempted suicide.” The medical examiner’s report showed he had significant cervical injuries consistent with strangulation in a choke hold; his death was ruled a homicide.
There are the known deaths of immigrants too afraid to leave their homes to seek medical care. They included a woman late last month, who waited so long to go to the ED at Zuckerberg San Francisco Hospital for complications of diabetes, out of fear of ICE, that she died in the hospital.
There are the murder of innocent U.S. citizens who are peacefully protesting, or simply helping a bystander like Renee Nicole Good, and Alex Pretti, and the killing of Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE officer.
Some US citizens have been lucky to survive their injuries. Last Oct. 5, Miramar Martinez, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen and Montessori teacher in Chicago was on her way to donate clothes and honked to warn those in her neighborhood about ICE activities in the area. She collided with an ICE agent’s car when he stopped suddenly in front of her. She swerved around him to escape and was shot five times, by an officer who later boasted in a text that “I fired 5 shots and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book, boys.”(2 exit wounds from her torso entered her arms.) She was able to drive herself a mile further and then passed out at an auto shop where they called 911. CPB agents later arrested her and took her into detention, charging her with assault. Charges were quickly dropped after the ICE agent took the vehicle to Maine to have it repaired before evidence could be gathered.
On Jan. 13, Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen Aliyah Rahman, who has autism and a traumatic brain injury, was caught in a traffic jam caused by ICE activities. She was cursed at and told to move, but she was stuck in traffic. CPB agents cut her seat belt with a combat knife, rammed her face down to the road, and took her to a local detention center. The agents mocked her as she was told to walk in leg irons. She was never asked for an ID, nor charged with a crime. She was denied medical care until she passed out and was taken to HCMC.
Ninety percent of the (at last count) 212 ICE facilities are private contractors who each make hundreds of millions in dollars in profits annually. Reporting of morbidity and mortality has been questionable, and state officials have had limited access. But there has been significant reporting of dire conditions in these prisons.
Camps like “Alligator Alcatraz” — open tents in the middle of subtropical swamps — infested with mosquitoes, feces flooding living areas, and rotten food, seem purposely to be set up as means of torture. It is not surprising that outbreaks of infectious diseases like diarrhea, measles, and TB, are common in the camps. And, especially among detained children, who are sometimes separated from their families, mental illness like PTSD, and depression are nearly universal.
Several dozen, and perhaps more undocumented immigrants have been sent to countries in Africa and Central America where they have never lived, have no rights, and have been tortured, mentally and/or physically.
Finally there are the countless injuries caused by the use of tear gas and pepper balls on peaceful demonstrators, and residents who simply live in these neighborhoods or are trying to drive through them. These “non-lethal” weapons irritate the respiratory tract and can cause permanent eye damage.
The greatest threat to health caused by raids by ICE are those revealed by the physicians at HCMC — the loss of access to medical care out of fear. According to recent reports by the New York Times and NPR, up to half of immigrants, including those with legal status, in Baltimore, New York, Florida, California and elsewhere, avoid hospitals and clinics because they dread CBP agents. The risks for those with chronic illness, for children (who miss their vaccines), for the elderly and for pregnant people are dire. So is the economic fallout for those who cannot work and for states who must pay for increased morbidity and complications of illness.
ICE’s next target is the state of Maine, with an estimated 5,000 to 6000 undocumented immigrants, as compared to one million in Florida and two million in Texas. Utilizing what they think is a sense of humor, CBP is calling it “Operation Catch of the Day.” Since their kind of fishing for human beings is dragnet trawling, not selective line fishing, there will probably be, as in the rest of the country, plenty of bycatch — undocumented immigrants who have done nothing wrong, green card holders, children, legal citizens, and intimidation and fear for patients and doctors.
Dr. David Gottsegen of Belchertown is a pediatrician who focuses on the interrelationship between mind body and spirit. His book “Mending the Body with the Mind: Harnessing Kids’ Superpowers to Heal and Stay Healthy” was published on Nov. 25.