“The health care system is already in a staffing crisis,” said Dr. Anisha Hashmi, a psychiatrist in her final year of residency, whose father immigrated from Pakistan. “So when ICE raids our workplaces and our homes, it’s not just an attack on our immigrant patients, it’s an attack on all of us and our public health.”
She urged those in the crowd to think of their grandmother not able to get treatment because an immigrant doctor’s visa was denied or being unable to find a home nurse to hire because of workforce shortages.
About one in six hospital workers across the US are immigrants, according to a report by the health care nonprofit KFF based on data from the 2023 American Community Survey. In Greater Boston ,54 percent of nursing assistantsare immigrants, according to a February 2024 report by the nonprofit Boston Indicators and Immigration Research Initiative.
The workers also spoke about the fear immigrant patients feel since the administration changed the protected area policy, which now allows ICE agents to detain people at hospital schools and churches.
Dr. Anita Mathews, who specializes in primary care, said she’s seen an uptick in her immigrant patients missing appointments.
“I have called them when they miss their appointments, and they’ll tell me, ‘I’m really afraid to leave my house right now’,” Mathews, 35, said in an interview. “The patients who do come in are suffering from worsened anxiety, depression, and social isolation that’s making their mental health and their physical health much worse.
The protesters who held colorful signs and American flags stood in stark contrast to their surroundings.
The Burlington facility, one of two ICE field offices in Massachusetts, is a black building with tinted windows located at 1000 District Ave. It looks like a typical office building in a suburban office park, with hotels, restaurants and offices a short walk away.
The facility is meant only for short-term stays of up to 12 hours. But immigrants detained allege that they were made to sleep on concrete floors without mattresses and were not able to shower for days.
People have been protesting outside the facility every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for the last 14 weeks and have called the gatherings a way to “bear witness” to the human toll of Trump’s immigration policies.
Mileyda Cruz, 25, a medical assistant, entered the United States from El Salvador when she was a baby under TPS. About half the medical assistants at her hospital arrived the same way, or by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, better known as the “Dreamers Act,” which protects some undocumented immigrants who arrived as youngsters from deportation.
“For myself and all the other TPS recipients, the only thing we want to do is work and live a safe life,” Cruz said, “In return, we provide back to the country … we are not here to live off of the government.”
But the Trump administration has sought to end protections for TPS holders from Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Nepal, Haiti, and Venezuela.
Wednesday’s protest was cosponsored by the SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents, the country’s largest doctor union representing over 40,000 resident physicians, the Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network , the Leah Zallman Center for Immigrant Health Research, and the Massachusetts TPS Committee. The advocacy groups have joined in the weekly “Bearing Witness” protests organized by Laurie and Jared Berezin, a couple from Maynard.
Before the health care workers gave speeches, Jared Berezin, 43, stood facing the ICE facility with a microphone. He read out the fifth and eighth amendments of the Constitution that address due process and cruel and unusual punishment respectively.
“When we first came here 14 weeks ago it was just the two of us. We looked at this building, saw how ordinary it looked, and thought about these [ICE agents] planning hunting trips every day, and imprisoning people in the basement,” Jared Berezin said, “We realized we need to keep coming back.”
Dr. Brett Lewis, 34, a family physician and psychiatrist practicing in Boston, said that a year ago, a majority of the patients who came into her clinic didn’t speak English. Now, it’s the opposite, because immigrants are afraid to come in. Lewis has held telehealth appointments for her psychiatric patients but worries about the others who are missing out on care.
“With prenatal care where you need them to come in and do an ultrasound, you just can’t do that over the phone,” Lewis said.
Lewis said that her immigrant colleagues are important not just because of the work they do, but the quality of care they provide.
“They bring language experience, they reflect our patient population,” Lewis said, “They provide better care because of their immigration status and are absolutely vital.”
Angela Mathew can be reached at angela.mathew@globe.com.
