Mental Health Training for Immigration Judges

Approximately 400,000 persons are detained each year in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention system, with an average daily census of 34,000. Approximately 95% of these detainees are ultimately removed to their country of origin, and over half are not represented by an attorney.  A great deal of interaction occurs between detainees and immigration judges and their staffs during the detention and removal process. Immigration judges work as part of the Executive Office for Immigration Review under the Department of Justice. For detainees with mental illness, interaction with the security and adjudicating authorities may be problematic. Detainees with mental illness may not understand the legal proceedings that they are part of and the immigration judges charged with disposing of their cases may lack documentation and understanding of detainee’s specific mental health problems. This friction between unrepresented detainees with mental illness and the immigration judiciary has been highlighted by the American Bar association and numerous immigration judges. In order to address the troubled interface, the NYU Center for Health and Human Rights (CHHR) has developed and presented to ICE/EOIR a mental health training module for immigration judges and administrative staff in detention centers. The purpose of this module is to equip immigration judges with basic knowledge about various types of mental illness, to train them to ask questions that may increase their understanding of a patient’s mental health history and to assist in connecting detainees to appropriate mental health services both in detention centers and in post-detention settings.