A migrant needed surgery at DMC after an ICE encounter. The hospital won’t talk to her husband.

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Asylum-seeker Yerlys Moreno López was severely injured during an encounter with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Detroit last month.

She underwent surgery at DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital to treat the injuries, but the hospital has refused to provide medical updates to Moreno López’s husband or allow visitors.

Moreno López was detained May 19 after ICE agents attempted to pull her over near her home on Detroit’s eastside. According to ICE, she drove away, crashed her SUV into a parked vehicle and attempted to flee on foot before agents arrested her.

Her husband, who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution, said Moreno López suffered injuries to both knees when agents tackled her. He said agents also pulled out a fistful of her hair during the arrest.

After detaining Moreno López, ICE agents took her to the Detroit Medical Center (DMC). When her husband attempted to visit her, he said a doctor told him that she was in surgery for her knee injuries.

But when he returned later, hospital staff refused to provide information about her condition or confirm that she was receiving treatment there.

The episode is part of a pattern of violence by ICE agents under a Trump administration that has resisted limits on its ability to detain and deport as many people as possible.

DMC sides with ICE, denies access

Moreno López’s husband suspects that ICE asked DMC to withhold information about her, a practice that has reportedly become commonplace under the second Trump administration, despite concerns that it violates ICE’s own guidelines.

Tammy Battaglia, a DMC spokesperson, did not return multiple requests for comment.

Michael Drew, Moreno López’s attorney, said he was allowed to speak with her for 10 minutes by phone on May 23 with ICE agents listening in, and that subsequent requests for a confidential legal consultation with his client — a requirement under ICE guidelines — have been “completely ignored.”

ICE did not respond to questions about Moreno López’s access to visitors or confidential communication with her attorney at the hospital.

In a text message shared with Outlier Media, a DMC employee told Detroit City Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero that federal privacy law prevented the hospital from sharing information with family members.

HIPAA, the law cited by DMC, allows hospitals to share patients’ information with their loved ones if the patient does not object.

But the statute “doesn’t require the hospital to (disclose patient information), and if the police say they don’t want the hospital to do it they may decide not to,” said Kim Stanger, an Idaho-based attorney who specializes in healthcare regulation.

Stanger noted that while hospitals don’t have to share patients’ medical status with outsiders, patients do have the power under HIPAA to compel hospitals to release their electronic medical records to their families.

Santiago-Romero said the hospital is sowing fear by granting ICE’s request to withhold information about Moreno López’s whereabouts and condition.

“I believe (Moreno-López’s husband) has the right to know the condition of his wife’s health,” she said. “The fact that the hospital is denying him any information is frightening, especially after hearing Yerlys received double knee surgery, something her husband says she did not need until after she was confronted by ICE agents.”

‘A brutal act’

Moreno López has no criminal history in the United States, her attorney said. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol allowed her to enter the country in 2024 under a parole program. She is seeking asylum from persecution in Venezuela through legal channels and has a court hearing in June.

According to an ICE spokesperson, agents attempted to stop Moreno López “when she failed to yield and fled from officers at a high rate of speed,” and her small SUV caught fire after she drove it into a parked vehicle.

Detroit police later impounded the vehicle and said it sustained “heavy fire/accident damage,” according to City Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero.

The agents’ decision to throw Moreno López to the ground after she fled on foot, injuring her, “was a brutal act,” said her husband, who is also seeking asylum from Venezuela. He was held at ICE’s for-profit North Lake Detention Facility in northern Michigan for more than two months earlier this year and was released after a federal judge ruled that he had been unlawfully detained.

The couple has been caring for their 8-year-old son and three young grandchildren after one of their adult children was detained and taken to North Lake.

“Allegations of ICE misconduct in this case are false,” an unnamed agency spokesperson said in an email that included photos and an account of the collision that led to Moreno López’s hospitalization.

Editor's note: Since this story published in Outlier on May 28, Moreno López was transferred to North Lake. Her husband still hasn't spoken with her.

This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.