Migrant mental health crisis spirals in ICE detention facilities

[DonViejo]

ICE struggles to handle migrants with serious mental illness.

By RENUKA RAYASAM 07/21/2019 06:54 AM EDT

Federal inspectors visiting a California migrant detention center made a shocking discovery last year: Detainees had made nooses from bedsheets in 15 of 20 cells in the facility they visited.

The inspection revealed the extent of a largely unseen mental health crisis within the growing population of migrants who are being held in detention centers in border states. President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to reverse a policy that encouraged releasing vulnerable individuals while they await deportation hearings has left U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unequipped to deal with conditions ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia.

One estimate puts the number of detainees with mental illnesses between 3,000 and 6,000. Some advocates and lawyers who work with migrants in the facilities say it’s probably more. Many of the migrants with mental illness are not stable enough to participate in their own legal proceedings, so they languish in detention.

While treatment of immigrants has become an explosive national issue, the plight of mentally ill migrants has scarcely registered.

“This is a system that, for a long time, has failed to understand, neglected, and even ignored the mental health needs of folks caught up in it,” said Elizabeth Jordan, director of the Immigration Detention Accountability Project at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center. “But under this administration ... it has gotten so much worse.”

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/21/migrant-health-detention-border-camps-1424114

[Bayard]

1. If they didn't have depression and anxiety when they went in,

They certainly do now.

[Wounded Bear]

2. It's only "unseen" when you choose to look away...

Need we keep reminding people that "depression" and "mental health problems" are a feature, not a bug?