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Asylum-Seekers in Detention

Use the menu at right to explore all of the mental health evaluator training resources in this section. Click the title of a resource below to read or leave comments, or easily share the resource.

Disparities in Justice and Care: Persons With Severe Mental Illnesses in the U.S. Immigration Detention System

Ochoa, K, Pleasants, G, Penn, J and Stone, D (2010), Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law 38:392–9

The authors review the unique public health and legal problems that arise when a person with a severe mental illness is detained within the U.S. immigration system. Emerging standard of care and human rights concerns implicated by this topic require diligent scrutiny from a forensic, legal, and advocacy perspective and make this an important area for increased awareness among forensic psychiatrists.

Link: http://www.jaapl.org/content/38/3/392.full.pdf+html?sid=1ae146e3-e3a7-42b4-8724-…

Fact-Sheet 2: Examining Detained Clients

HealthRight International, Human Rights Clinic: Training, Resources and Support for Clinical Volunteers

Link: https://healthright.org//app/uploads/2014/08/FS2-Examining-detained-clients.pdf

From Persecution to Prison: The Health Consequences of Detention for Asylum Seekers

This report, by Physicians for Human Rights and the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture in 2003, discusses the health effects of detention on asylum seekers. It also suggests ways that the practice of long term detention of asylum seekers could be modified.

Link: http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/reports/from-persecution-to-prison.h…

Immigration Detention

American Civil Liberties Union
The Department of Homeland Security assumes that mass detention is the key to immigration enforcement. But in fact, our detention system locks up hundreds of thousands of immigrants unnecessarily every year, exposing detainees to brutal and inhumane conditions of confinement at massive costs to American taxpayers.
The ACLU dedicates a section of their website dedicated to the issue of immigrants in detention, listing resources, up-to-date data and advocacy tools.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/detention