Jacob Sweidan has seen his patients through the federal immigration raids of the 1990s, a sitting governor’s call to abolish birthright citizenship, and the highly publicized workplace crackdowns and family separation policies of President Donald Trump’s first term.
But in his 40 years as a pediatrician in Southern California serving those too poor to afford care, including many immigrant families, Sweidan said he’s never seen a drop-off in patient visits like this.
“They are scared to come to the offices. They’re getting sicker and sicker,” said Sweidan, who specializes in neonatology and runs five clinics in Los Angeles and Orange counties. “And when they are near collapsing, they go to the ER because they have no choice.”
In the last two months, he has sent young children to the emergency room because their parents worked up the courage to call his office only after several days of high fever. He said he attended to a 14-year-old boy in the ER who was on the verge of a diabetic coma because he’d run out of insulin, his parents too frightened to venture out for a refill.
Sweidan had stopped offering telehealth visits after the covid-19 pandemic, but he and other health care providers have brought them back as ramped-up immigration enforcement drives patients without legal status — and even their U.S. citizen children — deeper into the shadows.
Patients in need of care are increasingly scared to seek it after Trump res …