By Snakey
Amidst the October 2026 surge in ICE abductions in Northern California, two Oaklanders were beaten and abducted on October 16th, one in Emeryville, one in Oakland. Both were injured badly enough to require hospitalization. One was taken to San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and the other to Oakland’s Wilma Chan Highland Hospital (AHS). The person taken to SFGH was able to leave the hospital to freedom in three days. The unfortunate person hospitalized at the AHS hospital did not fare so well, and was disappeared into ICE custody after six days.
Why the difference?
In short, past organizing fought and changed SFGH policies and procedures to prepare for this situation – policies and procedures that Alameda Health System still lacks.
After intense organizing in 2024-2025 by SFGH hospital staff, SFGH hospital had established policies and procedures that enabled the patient immediate access to lawyers and community support – a writ of habeas corpus was immediately filed, was approved and the patient walked away from ICE and back home after three days.
Across the bay, Alameda Health System (AHS) hospital administrators ignored repeated staff and union demands for appropriate policies and procedures for ICE-detained patients. AHS hospital administrators collaborated with ICE agents, allowing agents to occupy a floor of the hospital and guard the handcuffed patient through 30 ICE agent shift changes. Hospital lawyers prohibited communication with or about the patient among staff and community, imposing a bubble of secrecy. Outside, community rapid responders carried out a constant six-day monitoring presence, identifying and logging 23 ICE vehicles and dozens of agents. AHS in cooperation with Alameda County sheriffs enabled ICE agents to assemble their vehicles in a secure, gated location. On October 23 evening, the patient was led on a walker by sheriff and ICE agents and bundled into an ICE vehicle convoy which brutally sped away past community monitors unable to stop the patients’ disappearance into the ICE gulag system.
Disturbingly, during the six days the patient was held incommunicado at AHS, no one, hospital administrators nor sheriffs, asked agents to show a signed warrant. ICE never had a warrant. The patient was unlawfully held – kidnapped – and both AHS and county sheriffs had openly violated Alameda County ICE Free Zone law and the sheriff’s own Zero-Contact Policy with immigration officials.
Community responders are fighting to hold AHS, the County and the sheriffs accountable. Hospital staff and union are demanding key changes to hospital protocols. It is critical that we all work to connect hospital and health care staff to community responders in our collective fight against ICE and for our communities. We stand in solidarity with Chloe Renae Freeman, the Ann Arbor, Michigan nurse charged by the federal government in October of helping an illegally detained ICE patient exit the hospital to freedom. POWER TO THE HEALERS.