A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

The Trump administration has begun to wind down its immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, but thousands are still hiding in their homes, afraid even to go to the hospital or doctor. Democratic state Senator Alice Mann is also a physician.

ALICE MANN: Letting people die at home or come close to death because they are terrified to go into the hospital in 2026 is outrageous.

MARTÍNEZ: Mann says other places in the U.S. should prepare for the medical repercussions of an ICE deployment.

MANN: Health care providers need to start an underground network. I know that sounds crazy, but they need to start an underground network of how to get people care in their homes.

MARTÍNEZ: In Minneapolis, doctors, nurses and other volunteers created networks to let them quietly visit patients where they live. Kate Wells with our partner KFF Health News has a story.

FERNANDA HONEBRINK: (Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Spanish).

KATE WELLS, BYLINE: Fernanda Honebrink is a midwife, she is not a pediatrician. But today, she is driving to visit a 1-year-old baby in his home.

(SOUNDBITE OF TURN SIGNAL CLICKING)

HONEBRINK: (Speaking Spanish).

WELLS: First, she’s got to figure out the directions to the baby’s mom.

HONEBRINK: (Speaking Spanish).

WELLS: Honebrink asked her colleagues who are pediatricians, hey, what do you do at the one-year well-child checkup?

HONEBRINK: ‘Cause I don’t know. I’m a midwife, you know? And they’re like, oh, that’s the year that they need the most vaccines, and they – we need to check the hemoglobin, we need to check the lead levels. So it’s very important for them to come, but they’re just afraid of leaving the house.

WELLS: NPR and KFF Health News agreed not to identify the patients and their families in this story because they fear becoming targets of ICE.

(SOUNDBITE OF BABY BABBLING)

WELLS: When Honebrink arrives, the baby that she came to see is scooting himself across the floor, sitting on one leg, using the other like a paddle to propel himself. His dad says he and his wife desperately want to take the baby to the doctor.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Through interpreter) Knowing that it’s something very necessary for the baby and knowing that it’s very risky, you weigh it on the scale. And you don’t know what is most important – whether to go out for his well-being or to go out and think that you might not come back. It’s something very difficult for us.

WELLS: Honebrink was able to get the family an in-person appointment with their pediatrician and a ride from a vetted volunteer driver. All of these drivers also have one thing in common.

HONEBRINK: A white person.

WELLS: You put a white person in the car and then you put them in the back?

HONEBRINK: Mm-hmm.

WELLS: When Operation Metro Surge began in Minneapolis in December, ICE was suddenly showing up in and around hospitals. And in some places, that is still the case, even after the end of this operation was announced.

EMILY CARROLL: We have ICE staging in our local hospitals’ parking lots every morning.

WELLS: Emily Carroll is a family nurse practitioner at a clinic outside of Minneapolis, and she also does home visits now.

CARROLL: I used to look somebody in the eyes and say with good faith, you will be fine at the hospital. You will be safe at the hospital. But now I can’t make that guarantee.

WELLS: She saw a baby with the flu the other week, and she told the parents…

CARROLL: If you see the baby struggling to breathe, if the baby’s not eating, if the baby isn’t making wet diapers, you have to go to the hospital. I cannot promise it’s safe, but you’ve got to go.

WELLS: Tricia McLaughlin with the Department of Homeland Security wrote in a statement that, ICE does not conduct enforcement at hospitals, she said, and actually has made these communities safer by arresting thousands of, quote, “criminal illegal aliens.”

Munira Maalimisaq is a nurse practitioner who started a neighborhood clinic before ICE arrived in town, and now she has organized her own separate rapid response team of more than 150 volunteer doctors. The first call that they got was from a woman whose husband had been deported. She was home with her kids, nine months pregnant and in labor, so Maalimisaq and an OB from this rapid response team rushed to her house. The woman is 8 centimeters dilated.

MUNIRA MAALIMISAQ: She does not want us to call ambulance or anything. She just says, can I have the baby here?

WELLS: But the woman had health issues that meant she was not a good candidate for a home birth, so Maalimisaq and the OB convinced her to go to the hospital in Maalimisaq’s car.

MAALIMISAQ: Small Tesla, white car seats. I’m like, everything that could be wrong was just there, but we were able to take her to the hospital safely.

WELLS: But many families who are still in hiding have extensive ongoing medical needs. Fernanda Honebrink, the midwife, is making one last stop today. She’s going to visit 2-year-old Gabi, who was born here in the U.S. Gabi has a genetic condition that makes her bones fracture easily. She can’t stand on her own, but she squirms happily in her mom’s arms. She’s got pigtails, big brown eyes, really likes blowing raspberries.

(SOUNDBITE OF BLOWING RASPBERRY)

WELLS: (Laughter).

When ICE arrived in Minneapolis last fall, Gabi’s father was deported, then her aunt was detained. Her mom says Gabi was scheduled to have a complex surgery on her legs and her feet in January. That surgery is her best chance of being able to stand on her own, maybe even walk someday.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Through interpreter) I want my baby to manage to walk. My wish is that she manages to walk. But I hope – I hope to God that yes.

WELLS: But ever since the deportations, the family almost never leaves home. It’s a one-bedroom apartment shared with eight relatives. And her mom canceled the surgery.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Through interpreter) With the situation that’s happening, I canceled the surgery and all the physical therapy appointments because I’m afraid to leave.

WELLS: Gabi’s surgery has been rescheduled for August. By then, her mom hopes it may be safe to leave the house. I’m Kate Wells in Minneapolis.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHUCK JOHNSON’S “RIGA BLACK”)

MARTÍNEZ: Kate did this reporting with Arthur Allen, and they are both with our partner KFF Health News.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHUCK JOHNSON’S “RIGA BLACK”)

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