It was hardly two weeks after the election when a doctor in our clinic received a letter from one of her patients, an undocumented immigrant who feared that Immigration and Customs Enforcement might detain her under a second Trump term.

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The patient had diabetes and suffered from rotator cuff tendinitis, which makes reaching backward quite painful. “Is there any possibility you can write a letter,” she asked, “stating that if they handcuff me, can they please handcuff me with my hands in front of me?” She was also panicked about her diabetes. “I am scared that they will not allow me to take any medications in the immigration camps.”

The patient asked that if the doctor needed an in-person visit with her, “may it be scheduled before January?” She would do only virtual visits after Trump took office. “I’m scared I.C.E. will be in train stations and bus stops,” she said.

As a physician, it was hard to read this without feeling sickened. It brought back the tumultuous months of 2017,66jogo defined by the first Trump administration’s travel bans and vitriol against immigrants. So many of our patients were terrified by the rhetoric; anxiety levels and blood pressure skyrocketed. But what seemed like an electoral aberration now feels like an American retrenchment. Tom Homan, tapped to become the so-called border czar, has promised “shock and awe” on Day 1.

To be sure, every presidential administration for the past 30 years has deported undocumented immigrants, though mostly at or near the border. What feels different about this upcoming term — and why medical professionals will need to play a more active role in protecting their patients — is the scope. The specter of mass and potentially indiscriminate roundups feels more akin to the shameful internment of Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during World War II.

Historically, health care workers have not always risen to the occasion when our patients have been targeted. Our recent history is tarnished by failures to report abuses or intervene at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay, as well as by forced sterilizations of prisoners, women of color and people with disabilities.

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