In the lobby of a downtown New Orleans hotel, 30 doctors and med students sprawled across a marble floor. The September 10 die-in was targeting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, covering five southern states, which is housed in the same building as the Hyatt; more specifically, it was a last-minute attempt to prevent the deportation of Yoel Leal, a 51-year-old with serious health issues, who came to the U.S. a year ago to request asylum after being assaulted by police in his native Cuba.

Leal is one of 15 plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center . According to the suit, detainees have experienced delayed or absent treatment for anaphylactic shock from food allergies, a brain parasite, diabetes, cerebral palsy, and other illnesses. "All persons in ICE custody receive comprehensive medical care," said Cox. According to Cox, ICE could have used "prosecutorial discretion" to halt a deportation order based on "mitigating circumstances," but the agency chose to go forward with Leal's removal.

Three doctors reviewed his medical records and wrote multiple letters to ICE officers and Congress on Leal's behalf, stating that he should have received an immediate biopsy. "NSCLC [non-small cell lung cancer] is treatable when discovered at early stages," internist Catherine Jones wrote in a letter dated September 6. "Allowing months to pass, knowing malignancy is likely and not pursuing even diagnosis, much less treatment, ensures that the cancer will have progressed during this time. There is a significant possibility it will have progressed to a stage where treatment is not an option, causing premature and preventable death."

In May, Leal was taken to an emergency room with pneumonia. An X-ray showed a mass that indicated a more worrisome issue than gout. The radiologist told Leal it was probably cancer. Leal never received a biopsy, even as his shortness of breath worsened.

In 2016, before Donald Trump took office, ICE released 75 percent of eligible asylum seekers in the Deep South, but today ICE keeps the vast majority in detention while their cases are processed. Rather than being released to his wife, a legal Florida resident, Leal remained in ICE custody for 11 months after making his asylum claim. According to the advocacy group Congreso de Jornaleros, he was moved from the Mexican border to Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama. (New Orleans-based ICE spokesperson Bryan Cox said Leal was held the first five months to await trial, which is standard procedure.) In February, he received an order of deportation and, per Cox, would have been viewed by the agency as a flight risk—even though in detention his legs grew so swollen from gout, a condition that he had previously been able to manage, that he couldn't walk and other detainees had to help him to the cafeteria and showers.

"I think there's a sea shift in people going into medicine," said Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, a rehab physician in practice for 16 years, who participated in protests in New Orleans. "If you're 22 and you want to make a lot of money, you're going into tech. You're not going to go through a 10-year training program that puts you in a massive amount of debt. Now medicine is more self-selected for people who really want to help."

Historically, doctors have skewed politically conservative and some have participated in racist atrocities, such as forced sterilization and the infamous Tuskegee experiment , in which doctors didn't treat Black men for syphilis in order to observe the disease progression. But in recent years many doctors have embraced left-of-center causes that intersect with their profession, including gun control , government-funded healthcare , and, most regularly and frequently, the right of detained migrants to obtain medical care.

Cases like Leal's have inspired opposition from a host of activist organizations, including Congreso, part of the New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice, which organized a rally in front of the Hyatt for Leal the day before his die-in. But this opposition also comes from medical professionals, who increasingly view ICE's alleged mistreatment of detainees as a stain on their profession. Doctors have acted as whistleblowers, discouraged their colleagues from taking staff positions in ICE facilities, and marched in the streets.

Himmelfarb and eight other activists were charged with obstructing traffic and spent several hours in jail. Later Himmelfarb received a letter from the state medical licensing board, asking her to write a statement about her arrest. It's a process she will have to repeat throughout her career.

"I do have this kind of prestige as a doctor, and I have people who would want to get me out of jail," she said.

Other medical professionals feel their jobs give them a form of privilege they should utilize to advocate for patients, even if those patients aren't their own. Sarah Talia Himmelfarb, 35, a third-year resident, was one of a group of protesters who blocked traffic in a Congreso-led protest outside of the Hyatt. Frustrated drivers yelled and blared horns. One SUV drove through the line, slamming hard against a protestor, who was rattled but uninjured. Himmelfarb worried that an arrest would lead to her being fired from her clinical position at a local teaching hospital. But she knew she wanted to be there.

Keith Chappel, a Massachusetts-based ER physician, once considered himself a Republican, but Trump has caused him to reassess. "As a physician, my political ideology always takes a back seat to my Hippocratic Oath… to do no harm to patients," he said. "For many doctors, these current detention camps run against the commitment to this oath."

"Maybe this will close some doors, but maybe it will open some doors," said Kurtz-Burke. "Or maybe you don't want to be in a program where they're not comfortable with you taking a stand on this."

Himmelfarb and a few other doctors and advocates spent the entire night of September 11, the day before Leal's scheduled deportation, contacting the Federal Aviation Authority, Delta Airlines, and the Atlanta airport to alert all parties that it was risky—and possibly lethal—for someone with compromised lung capacity to fly. (The reduced oxygen and increased pressure could cause Leal's blood oxygen to plunge to a dangerous level.) Ultimately they found a security guard willing to intervene, but by the time the guard arrived at the gate, the plane was gone. It had taken off four minutes early. (He is still alive in Cuba and seeking treatment.)

Himmelfarb didn't cry until the plane was halfway to Cuba. Then, as the adrenaline subsided, she began to think about Leal trying to breathe, in what would be excruciating conditions. She felt her own chest tighten. She had treated patients during asthma attacks, or with pneumonia, heart failure, lung cancer or COPD. She had seen people gasp, desperate for air.

Some of the doctors advocating for immigrants are seasoned organizers. Lara Jirmanus, the founder of Boston's Health and Law Immigrant Solidarity Network, a lobbying and educational organization, came to medicine as a second career, to better serve those she had been advocating for in her previous role as an organizer. So did Ian Kim, the founder of the Sacramento Chapter of Doctors for Camp Closure (D4CC). Others, including many of the doctors participating in the New Orleans-based die-in for Leal, had never demonstrated before. For many, it was the clinical details of a particular case or general media reports about conditions inside detention facilities that spurred them to action.