ICE Removes Injured Woman From Hospital

A 36-year-old woman who has been hospitalized since being injured during an immigration detention action in Sherman Oaks is believed to have been taken out of the medical center Friday by agents who had been stationed at the facility since she was admitted, and friends said they do not know where she was taken.

The continued presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in green fatigues and masks at Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital had drawn outrage from community activists, some elected officials and representatives of nursing organizations who said Milagro Solis Portillo deserved “to heal in safety and dignity, free from intimidation and fear.”

In a Friday morning email, family contact Maggie Sisco said Portillo was removed between 5:45 and 6:30 a.m. “despite the treating physician and medical team telling them she is not medically stable and ready for discharge. They refused to say where they were taking her.”

Portillo had been hospitalized since being injured July 3 during an immigration enforcement operation outside a Sherman Oaks apartment complex.

Activists had said the presence of ICE agents was “creating a hostile and frightening environment for her, other patients, and hospital staff. Their presence is invasive and inappropriate in a medical setting.”

A statement issued on Portillo’s behalf by the Immigrant Defenders Law Center said she was arrested at her home by two officers who refused to identify themselves or produce a signed judicial warrant for her arrest.

Center officials claimed the officers twisted her arms and threw her to the ground, leading to injuries so severe she began vomiting and choking in the car while she was handcuffed and was left in her own vomit for about eight hours between the of her initial detention and when she was admitted to the hospital.

In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said Portillo “is an illegal alien from El Salvador who has been removed from the United States twice and has been arrested for crimes of false identification, theft, and burglary.”

But Portillo, in her statement through the law center, said she has “never had a single criminal conviction.”