Nurse charged with helping man in hospital escape from ICE custody

The federal government is charging a Michigan nurse accused of illegally helping an undocumented immigrant, who was being treated in a hospital, escape from immigration officials, court records unsealed this week show.

Arrest and charges

The patient, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, had been arrested around two hours earlier by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) border patrol agents.

But in others, the Trump administration has been successful in prosecuting activists.

Charges and court proceedings

An FBI agent’s declaration submitted in a federal court accuses Chloe Renae Freeman, 33, of “instigating or assisting escape”, a federal misdemeanor, by helping a patient leave an Ann Arbor hospital while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in May.

Freeman, who worked at the hospital at the time, told hospital investigators she did not agree with federal immigration officials “separating people from their families” and that she “was going to set him free”, the FBI complaint says.

The undocumented man had still not been caught by the time she was charged in August.

This is one of the latest examples of people facing charges for anti-ICE actions, as the agency and its aggressive anti-immigrant crackdown grow widely unpopular.

In some cases, charges against protesters and anti-ICE advocates have fallen apart under scrutiny.