Immigrant Daily

Judges’ Lack Guidelines in Dealing with Mentally Ill Immigrants

Lack of guidance on how to deal with cases involving mentally ill immigrants is becoming a matter of concern. The immigration courts have no proceedings to determine their competency. This was highlighted in a recent case, where a 45 year-old schizophrenic and epileptic legal permanent resident, (LPR) Jose Fernandez Sanchez under delusion broke into his neighbor’s apartment, instead of taking Sanchez to get medical attention, authorities started deportation proceedings against him, leaving him in a detention-center cell for eight months. Finally, his siblings pooled their money to put his case in a proper manner and succeeded in it. However, most mentally ill immigrants aren’t so fortunate.

“There are no rules or any guidelines or any laws related to determining mental competency,” said Elaine Komis, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees deportation hearings for the U.S. Department of Justice. “When judges encounter someone who seems to be mentally incompetent, they do try as much as possible to arrange for some kind of pro bono counsel.” Social-justice advocates say that’s not good enough. Researchers from the nonprofit advocacy group Texas Appleseed have teamed up with pro bono attorneys from the Akin Gump law firm to study mental-health procedures in detention and deportation proceedings. Their focus is on Texas, which houses a third of the country’s immigrant detainees and is home to eight of the nation’s 55 immigration courts.

For complete information, please click: Mentally ill immigrants have little hope for care when detained