Senator Tammy Duckworth demands ICE to stop using Hines VA Hospital parking lot in letter to secretary

U.S. Senator for Illinois Tammy Duckworth has penned a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, opposing the use of Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital property as staging for immigration enforcement agents.

Duckworth says the hospital has been ordered to "surrender" parking spots for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to use as a staging area, amid the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz" immigration crackdown in the Chicago area. According to a spokesperson for Duckworth, ICE is using about a dozen spaces.

Writing to Collins, Duckworth says the hospital's parking lot already poses challenges to veterans going there for medical care even without parts of it being taken over by federal agents. Duckworth herself has been a patient at Hines; she is a double amputee who lost both her legs in combat while serving in the Army in Iraq.

She writes the parking lot has "long lacked capacity to handle the daily volume of patients, family members and caregivers." Those limitations have "forced Veterans to miss appointments and made visiting Hines a highly stressful and unpleasant event for Veterans," which she said she has experienced personally.

"Yet, it adds injury to insult when VA surrenders resources in support of reckless, paramilitary activities that do nothing
to enhance Veteran care," the letter continues. "It is preposterous that VA would believe allowing ICE to operate on the Hines campus will not adversely impact delivery of care for Hines' patients."

Duckworth excoriates ICE as "an out-of-control paramilitary force that refuses to identify itself with uniforms and covers its face as it snatches Americans off the streets into unmarked vans" and bemoans "the Trump administration's dishonorable distinction of deporting Veterans at an unprecedented rate."

"Allowing ICE to stage its civil immigration enforcement operations on Hines property is a betrayal of your duty to put the best interests of Veteran patients first," Duckworth writes."

Duckworth closes her letter by telling Collins she does not require a response, but instead wants "swift, decisive action" removing ICE from Hines property and more protections for veterans and their family members from deportation.

The ICE presence at Hines prompted a protest at the west suburban hospital Monday attended by a couple dozen people.

Protest organizers said the presence of agents on hospital property "threatens the safety of veterans and impedes on their ability to get the health care they need. Military veterans come from all communities, including immigrant ones."

A spokesperson for Secretary Collins called Duckworth's complaints "baseless."

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is temporarily using 12 Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital parking spaces for vehicle storage. Ten of these spaces were never even open to the public because they had been reserved for VA-owned vehicles. All of the spots are located far from the main hospital building, ensuring ample parking remains available for Veteran patients. There has been no impact on Veteran care or facility access," spokesman Pete Kasperowicz said. "VA is proud to support its federal partners in the fight against illegal immigration, unlike liberal Chicago politicians, who have repeatedly put the interests of illegal immigrants and criminals above those of hard-working citizens."