The U.S. immigration system falls short in how it treats individuals with mental disabilities, Texas Appleseed concludes in a study conducted in Texas with pro bono assistance from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. “Immigrants with mental disabilities are unnecessarily detained in a system ill-equipped to care for them, sometimes arbitrarily transferred away from their communities, often denied basic due process in a complex immigration court system, and all too frequently released from detention or removed from the United States with little concern for their safety and well-being,” Texas Appleseed reports in “Justice for Immigration’s Hidden Population,” which was made public yesterday. About a quarter of all immigrants who are apprehended in the United States each year are detained in Texas, Texas Appleseed executive director Rebecca Lightsey notes in a press release. Texas Appleseed found that immigrants with mental disabilities “fare poorly” in immigration courts and often are ill-treated in detention. Texas Appleseed offers recommendations for improving the system: Immigrants with mental disabilities are vulnerable and deserve special protections and should be placed in the least-restrictive setting possible; Immigration and Customs Enforcement should provide proper diagnoses and care for immigrants with mental illness who are in detention and should develop a “competent” medical records system; immigrants with mental disabilities should be represented by counsel in immigration courts; and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security should make sure immigrants with mental disabilities are “safe” upon their release from detention or when removed from the United States. Akin Gump lawyers in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., worked on the yearlong study.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
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