The international advocacy group Human Rights First has published a study documenting the increasing difficulties asylum seekers face when entering the US. Refugees seeking entry often spend months or even years in jails or other detention facilities before being granted asylum. In 2003, the Department of Homeland Security took responsibility for immigration processing and generated new policies requiring detainment of significantly more asylum seekers. Under the control of DHS, the number of beds in these detention facilities has increased by 62%, while the number of asylum seekers released has dropped by 42%. These facilities are strikingly similar to actual prisons – asylum seekers are brought into them with handcuffs and chains, wear prison uniforms, and have limited visits from family and friends. Detainees are not provided with sufficient physical or mental health care – care that is often urgently needed. A 2003 report in the Lancet found that of 70 research participants detained in detention centers or local jails, 86% showed symptoms of depression and 50% of post-traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, length of detention time was found to significantly exacerbate their psychological symptoms.
Many of these asylum seekers are human rights advocates forced to flee their own countries to avoid persecution. As one such man, Jean-Pierre from West Africa, describes, “They handcuffed me like a criminal…It was like reliving my jail in Guinea.” Because immigration courts follow different procedures than criminal ones, trials do not have to be made public and often require a lower burden of proof for conviction. Asylum seekers who cannot afford lawyers face further difficulties in detention, as immigration courts are not required to provide legal representation to defendants, even for mentally ill or mentally incompetent individuals. The hazards of these policies can be seen in the case of Xiu Ping Jiang, a Chinese woman with no past criminal record, who has spent over a year in jail. According to her lawyer (who agreed to work on her case pro bono), she is currently “suicidal, emaciated, and deprived of proper medical treatment.”
Jiang fled China after being forcibly sterilized by Chinese officials for violating the one-child policy when she gave birth to her second son. For over ten years she remained in the US as her mental health deteriorated. In 1997, Jiang attempted suicide following a failed effort to bring her youngest son to the US. Her two sisters believe that the stress of living in the country undocumented and seeking asylum, while being separated from her children, significantly worsened her already poor mental health. Now that she is in prison, frequently in solitary confinement and without any access to psychological care, both her family and her lawyer fear that she will again attempt suicide. A habeas corpus petition seeking her release was recently filed by her lawyer. It maintains that the severity of her mental illness, magnified by a lengthy imprisonment, makes her incapable of managing her own case. An experience from earlier this year seems to support this: Jiang’s mental health had deteriorated to the point where she was unable to recognize her older sister during a visit to the prison.
Jiang’s experience of detention and lack of medical treatment despite mental illness is unfortunately not an exceptional case. The number of detainees needing treatment for psychological illnesses is not recorded, and many asylum seekers fail to receive the care they need. As Sunita Patel, a lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the New York Times, “…more and more people with mental illnesses are being put into the detention system. And sometimes these people disappear.”
More links:
Report Finds U.S. Often Greets Asylum Seekers with Prison, not Protection
US Detention of Asylum Seekers and Human Rights