The Trump administration has managed to plug a program that provides legal help to immigrants who are mentally incompetent, according to a lawsuit filed by legal immigration groups.
The groups, which filed the lawsuit at the Federal District Court of the Columbia district on Monday night, said about 200 people received services through the completed program known as the National Qualified Representatives Program.
The lawyers said that the end of the representation leaves some of the most vulnerable immigrants, those with mental health problems, cognitive disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, in danger. The program ended in all states, except Arizona, California and Washington, where it was originally established as part of a legal agreement.
“People who suffer from mental illnesses in many countries around the world have a serious risk of torture and death,” and without advice, deportation could submit them to these conditions, David Faherty, supervisor lawyer for adult detention with the National Immigrant Justice Center, One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit told NBC News.
NBC News has communicated with the Casa Blanca and Justice department to comment. The National Security Department deferred to the Department of Justice in comments.
The program is the last objective of the Trump administration, since it seeks to accelerate deportations and dismantle legal programs that support immigrants. The Administration has also been trying to drown the money paid to immigration lawyers who help unaccompanied immigrant children. He finished orientation for detainees that informed them about their rights, and plans to replace lawyers representing children or tutors separated on the border under the previous administration of Trump with the administration’s own lawyers.
In a March memorandum, President Donald Trump dismissed with immigration lawyers and ordered the attorney general to take measures against them in certain circumstances.
The end of April 25, a contract with the Acacia Justice Center, the contractor who subcontracts with several of the legal groups he demanded, had an immediate impact, Faherty said.
Faherty had informed us of the application of immigration and customs of the United States and an immigration court that a man contained with ice custody had a mental illness, who learned from a call from a family member to the direct line of the National Immigrant Justice Center. An immigrant judge determined that the immigrant was not competent and needed a lawyer. That same day, the Trump administration took the plug from the program that one would have provided.
Faherty said that a lawyer is generally mandatory, the National Immigrant Justice Center would listen to the court to provide legal advice. But he has not been contacted.
Together with the assistance that passes through the process, legal groups help establish forensic, medical and psychological evaluations; Make sure there are access to treatment; Or sometimes they help immigrants contact a lost relative, lawyers said.
The circumstances of immigrants direct the entire range, with some who have no home, others whose mental illness has only begun to emerge, some who suffered traumatic brain injuries and major immigrants who experience dementia. There are also those who have been diagnosed with mental illnesses and underwent treatment before finishing in ice custody.
The program is popular among immigration judges because it facilitates their work, since they can leave the job of obtaining evaluations to lawyers, Faherty said.
“Having advice in this situation is more efficient. It moves much more softly through the immigration process than if it has no advice,” he said.
The program that the administration ended comes from a 2013 demand in which the main plaintiff, José Antonio Franco-González, a Mexican immigrant with cognitive disabilities, was arrested for almost five years without a hearing or a lawyer.
The 2010 demand agreement was applied only to immigrants in the states of Arizona, California and Washington. But the Department of Justice and the Department of National Security under the administration of Obama adopted a policy to extend the “improved” protections for immigrants to those of all other states.
“The government’s action to reduce funds for a lawyer appointed by the Court for people who are not competent to represent themselves in the Immigration Court is not only heartless and cruel, but also discriminatory against people with disabilities,” Laura Lunn, director of Defense and Litigation in the Red Rocky Mountain Imigrant Advocacy Network, another plaintiff, another plaintiff. declared in a press release.
Veronica Barba, a California lawyer who manages cases covered by the finished program, said the difference since the agreement is like the night and day.
“People languished in courts and detention centers for years and years,” said Barba. “The way I look at it could be any of us who falls someday.”
Demanders of the lawsuit include American Gateways, the Amica Immigrant Rights Center, Estrella del Paso, the Galveston-Houston Immigrant Representation Project, the Minnesota Immigrant Law Center, Immigration and Legal Defense Services, the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocation Network.
