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Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested two people in East Palo Alto Monday morning and entered Stanford Hospital after one of them required medical assistance, according to San Mateo and Santa Clara County Rapid Response Networks.
Family members of the two people arrested in East Palo Alto did not wish to share further details about the arrests that the San Mateo County Rapid Response Network said were targeted.
“They did not pick people up from the street, so it wasn’t random,” said an operator with the San Mateo County network, who declined to be named, citing concerns over personal safety. “They came looking for a particular address and picked up particular people. It wasn’t like a raid, where they were picking up people off the street.”
The two people were arrested in front of their homes, according to the network.
Federal agents notified the East Palo Alto Police Department when they arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, said Police Chief Jeff Liu, who was unaware why they were in the area.
“We do not work with ICE,” he wrote in a message. “They left town after the arrest. I didn’t know they arrested two people.”
While past police raids have been mistaken for ICE activity, Monday’s confirmed ICE sightings sparked fear on social media platforms like Facebook, where East Palo Alto residents shared videos purportedly of the arrests.
Santa Clara and San Mateo County Rapid Response networks verified that ICE entered Stanford Hospital after one person they arrested, who was accompanied by an attorney, had a “medical emergency.”
Stanford Hospital spokesperson Lisa Kim told this publication that federal agents brought in an individual who was in need of medical attention and that there were no arrests made at Stanford.
The Palo Alto Police Department confirmed to this publication that ICE provided a “courtesy notification” to the department, notifying police that they would be at Stanford Hospital.
Assistant Police Chief James Reifschneider said the notification was routine for local and federal law enforcement agencies.
“They did not request our assistance nor did we provide any,” Reifschneider said in an email.
Palo Alto police did not have any information about the individual that ICE was looking for, he said. While ICE informed the city of the agency’s presence, it did not provide information on whether it ultimately detained or arrested the individual in Palo Alto, Reifschneider said.
“To the best of our knowledge, we do not believe ICE has made any arrests in Palo Alto this year,” he said.
An employee at Stanford Hospital who did not wish to be named confirmed that ICE arrived at the emergency room just before noon on Monday.
ICE did not immediately respond to questions about the two operations.
Clarification: This story was updated to include Stanford Hospital’s clarification that federal agents brought in an individual who needed medical help and that there were no arrests made at the hospital. The San Mateo County Rapid Response Network clarified that the person was arrested in East Palo Alto.
