The 36-year-old woman hospitalized since being injured during an immigration detention action was reportedly removed Friday by agents who had been at the facility since she was admitted, but friends and activists do not know where she was taken, a contact for the woman said.
The continued presence of Immigration 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.”
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Los Angeles Thursday denied a request by government attorneys for a stay of her ruling last week barring immigration agents from detaining people without reasonable suspicion beyond their race, ethnicity or occupation.
The government had filed a notice of its plan to appeal the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and wanted U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong to put her ruling on pause pending that appeal. The 9th Circuit earlier this week also declined to issue a stay, since Frimpong had not yet ruled on the request.
In denying the stay on Thursday, Frimpong said the government hasn’t shown that it will suffer any harm from the restraining orders she issued last week and because “the federal government did not follow the rules for making this request.”
The judge also denied a request from Southland cities that want to formally participate in the case for an expedited hearing on the matter. A hearing is currently set next month to discuss the proposed intervenors’ request.
Frimpong set a briefing schedule for the individuals and organizations that brought the lawsuit July 2 to file their arguments on whether the court should issue a preliminary injunction order, which would last longer than the temporary restraining orders the court already issued.
The judge set a hearing for Sept. 24 in downtown Los Angeles.
DHS officials did not respond to a message seeking a response.
In their emergency motion lodged with the appellate court for a stay pending appeal, government attorneys argued the ruling places “coercive restraints on lawful immigration enforcement affecting every immigration stop and detention.”
The lawyers contend the judge’s injunction is a “straight-jacket” inflicting “irreparable harm” by preventing President Donald Trump “from ensuring that immigration laws are enforced.”
The ruling levels “systemic challenges to federal immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area,” according to the appeal.
Frimpong’s ruling came in response to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court by Public Counsel, the American Civil Liberties Union and attorneys representing Southern California residents, workers and advocacy groups on behalf of people who allege they were unlawfully stopped or detained by federal agents targeting locations where immigrant workers are traditionally hired.
It accused immigration officials of carrying out “roving patrols” and detaining people without warrants and regardless of whether they have actual proof they are in the country legally.
It further alleged federal agencies, including DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, engaged in unconstitutional and unlawful immigration enforcement raids by targeting Angelenos based on their perceived race and ethnicity and denying detainees constitutionally mandated due process.
U.S. officials have strongly denied those claims.
“A district judge is undermining the will of the American people. America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities. LAW AND ORDER WILL PREVAIL!” the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.
White House border czar Tom Homan also criticized the order.
“Look, we’re going to litigate that order, because I think the order’s wrong. I mean, she’s (Frimpong) assuming that the officers don’t have reasonable suspicion. They don’t need probable cause to briefly detain and question somebody. They just need reasonable suspicion. And that’s based on many articulable facts,” Homan told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.