by Mia Maldonado, Oregon Capital Chronicle
February 25, 2026
Federal agents in Oregon have detained and shot immigrants in hospital parking lots, accessed confidential emergency medical service logs from behind nurses’ desks and interfered with nurses while they care for patients — some with shackled ankles as agents stood guard in exam rooms.
That’s according to news reports and hundreds of testimonies from health care workers across Oregon who are supporting a bill the Senate passed in a 18-9 party line vote late Tuesday to create protections for immigrants and health care workers responding to federal agents at health care facility premises.
Democratic lawmakers and the Oregon Nurses Association proposed Senate Bill 1570, which aims to help hospital staff respond when federal law enforcement arrives on site and protect sensitive information. Bill sponsors call it the “Health Care Without Fear Act.”
The House Rules Committee scheduled a public hearing and vote on the bill for 8 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 26. Oregonians who want to submit written testimony or sign up to speak in person or remotely can go here.
The bill would require hospitals to designate which areas are closed to the public and prohibit hospitals from disclosing a person’s immigration status unless required by a court order or to ensure continued care. It would also prohibit hospitals from retaliating against employees for sharing informational materials on immigration rights and legal services and require hospitals to treat a person’s citizenship or immigration status in the same way as protected health information.
The bill is a part of the “immigrant justice package,” or a range of bills Democrats are proposing to add on to existing protections for immigrants living in Oregon as the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement.
“This bill does not shield criminal conduct, it upholds due process,” bill sponsor Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, D-Aloha, said. “It does not prevent compliance of local court orders. It ensures that such orders exist before private information is handed over. When people delay care out of fear, public health suffers.”
No lawmakers debated the bill on the Senate floor, though previously the Office of the Legislative Counsel expressed that there are potential legal issues with the bill. In an opinion, Senior Deputy Legislative Counsel Christopher Allnatt said the bill may violate the part of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits states from interfering with operations of the federal government.
“We put a lot of work into the bill,” Campos told the Capital Chronicle following the vote. “We had several amendments, and so I think that probably got us to a space where there were folks that were ready to send it over.”
It must pass the Oregon House of Representatives next before it can head to the governor’s desk.
More social work and less medicine under Trump, doctors testify
Among the hundreds of doctors who testified in favor of the bill, many described it as a way to assure their patients that hospitals are safe places.
The bill received more than 200 letters of testimony in support, including letters from advocacy and health care groups such as the Oregon Psychological Association, Oregon Sexual Assault Task Force, the Oregon Justice Resource Center and Linn Benton Lincoln Health Equity Alliance.
Only six people submitted written testimony opposing the bill in the Senate.
Rory Gravelle, a registered nurse at a Portland hospital, told lawmakers that he has extensive experience working with local police and county corrections as a former nurse for psychiatric patients, but working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement is dramatically different, he said.
Fewer immigrants are seeking Oregon health care benefits under Trump
“I have seen ICE agents interfere with care, refuse to be identified, refuse to allow basic care to take place and I have seen administrators at these hospitals claim that policy is being followed while it is not being followed,” Gravelle said.
Other health care workers said fewer immigrant patients are coming in because they fear encountering federal agents, and that means less patients are getting check ups, picking up medication refills and more are missing chronic disease management.
“I find myself doing more and more social work and less medicine — helping patients find rides to the clinic when they’re afraid to take public transportation, educating them on legal resources and trying to reassure them that our clinic is still a place of safety,” physician Elizabeth Uno wrote.
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