First Lady Melania Trump’s visit to Boston Medical Center on Wednesday sparked a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump’s administration as more than 100 sign-toting staff members marched out of the building to argue the president’s policies on immigration and health care stood in stark contrast to the hospital’s core values of empathy and diversity.

Many doctors, nurses and students said they were not directly protesting Mrs. Trump, and some welcomed the attention to the hospital’s infant and opioid programs. But they were concerned the visit, part of the First Lady’s “Be Best” campaign focused drug abuse and cyberbullying, sent the wrong message to the hospital’s patients, many of whom are low-income and immigrants.

“We have a commitment to our patients, to the migrant population,” said Cecilia Girard, a nurse midwife, in an interview as protestors gathered. “For me, ‘be best’ is to love our patients and take care of them and respect them. We feel this administration is very disrespectful of our population, putting children and women in cages, they are divisive. I don’t want my patients to think I support the policies of President Trump.”

President Trump made tougher immigration laws and building a Mexico-funded wall the centerpiece of his 2016 campaign, describing the U.S. as “a dumping ground for everybody’s else’s problems” in his presidential bid announcement.

Girard, who’s been at the hospital for 26 years and sees immigrants “from all over the world, not just Latin America,” characterized the First Lady’s visit as a “photo op” as opposed to a learning experience, as Trump administration officials had described it this week.

Mrs. Trump’s visit highlighted the hospital’s Cuddling Assists in Lowering Maternal and Infant Stress (CALM) program for babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, a condition caused when a baby is exposed to certain drugs before birth. Mrs. Trump, accompanied by Alex Azar, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, attended a roundtable on the status of the programs and toured the hospital’s pediatric unit to meet children and families who’ve been treated, Trump administration officials said.

In a statement, Stephanie Grisham, White House Press Secretary, said the First Lady had looked forward to meeting Boston Medical Center’s leadership team and staff to learn about the hospital’s “impressive programs” supporting and providing care to struggling mothers and impacted babies.

“The First Lady is devoted to helping children and as part of her Be Best initiative, will continue highlighting programs and resources devoted to helping families affected by the opioid crisis,” Grisham said.

According to a readout of the event sent by White House officials, Mrs. Trump said it was “evident that the care and compassion that the medical staff devotes to the patients and their families has a positive impact on the entire Boston community.”

David Kibbe, Boston Medical Center’s director of communications, said neither the protest nor the First Lady’s visit impacted hospital operations on Wednesday.

In a letter sent this week to Boston Medical Center’s 6,000 employees, President and CEO Kate Walsh said Mrs. Trump asked to visit “because we are leaders” doing “important and impactful work." She added that as New England’s “largest safety net hospital,” Boston Medical Center’s relationship with the federal government was “extremely important," and she argued the visit could pave the way for change and greater understanding.

“It’s my hope that this visit will lead other providers across the country to offer the types of effective, non-stigmatizing treatment and programming that we provide here," she said. "As important, it is also my hope that the visit will be a unique opportunity to share our values of respect and inclusion with federal leaders whose policies have a significant impact on the vulnerable populations we are dedicated to serving. Nothing is more compelling than seeing firsthand the life changing care our staff provides to patients and families every day.”

Steve Rogers, a third-year medical student and research assistant, echoed many staff members by saying he didn’t know “how much choice the hospital had” in approving the visit.

“A lot of the administration’s policies have had a negative impact on our patient population specifically,” Rogers said. “We just want to show our solidarity.”

Trump administration policies came under scrutiny by doctors, advocates and lawmakers earlier this year after after roughly two dozen people in the Boston area received letters from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services informing them the agency would no longer process requests to stay in the country while they sought medical treatment in American hospitals. The sick children and their parents were told they had 33 days to leave the country, MassLive reported, before lawmakers called for oversight and USCIS said it would resume considering formal requests.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts’s 7th District, who had called for hearings over the matter, expressed support Wednesday for the employees, arguing the Trump administration “continues to the undermine the efforts of the incredible staff at BMC and health centers across the nation by stoking fear, limiting access to maternity and reproductive health care, and allowing providers to refuse care to patients in need.”