LOS ANGELES, Calif. – For five years, two men with mental disabilities have languished in immigration detention, effectively lost in a system that has no established procedures to determine whether they should be released or whether their cases should be resolved in another way.

Today, two affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel in Los Angeles and the Casa Cornelia Law Center in San Diego filed petitions in U.S. Federal District Courts in Southern California charging that the government has deprived the two men of their constitutional right to due process, and violated both the immigration statute under which they were detained and federal discrimination laws designed to protect people with disabilities.

In both cases, an immigration judge found the men incompetent to face proceedings, and their immigration cases ground to a complete halt. But instead of releasing them to the custody of family members or providing them with release hearings, immigration officials insisted on keeping the two men locked up, often in conditions that only exacerbated their already vulnerable mental states.

“These men were completely forgotten in the immigration prison system, their cases neglected for years. In other words, they were punished for having a mental disability,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrant rights and national security for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “Nobody tracked their cases, or even knew why they were detained. It’s a nightmare no family should face, but many will unless there’s true detention reform that creates standards to deal with individuals with mentally disabilities.”

Jose Antonio Franco Gonzalez, the 29-year-old son of lawful permanent residents, suffers from cognitive disability severe enough that he doesn’t know his own age or birthday, and cannot tell time or dial phone numbers. Mr. Franco has been held in various detention facilities around Southern California, including a jail in Santa Ana, since April 2005. He has remained in custody despite the fact that a judge closed his immigration case nearly five years ago after finding him mentally incompetent to understand the proceedings against him. The government did not move to reopen his case until three months ago. Mr. Franco has not been given a bond hearing to determine whether he presents a danger that would justify his prolonged detention, or whether his detention is even appropriate in light of his disability.

“It’s horrifying that a man with a serious mental disability could languish in detention for such an extraordinary length of time without an open immigration case against him and without even a simple bond hearing,” said Talia Inlender, a staff attorney with Public Counsel, who met Mr. Franco through her work running a legal clinic at a local immigration detention center, and has been advocating for months to secure his release. “An immigration system that detains a man like Mr. Franco for years without any kind of process is a system that violates the constitutional principles upon which this country is based.”

Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez is a 48-year-old man who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He has been held by immigration officials since December 2005. An immigration judge administratively closed his case for two-and-a-half years after the Department of Homeland Security failed to administer a psychiatric evaluation of him. When the case was reopened in June 2008, a judge ordered Mr. Gomez-Sanchez released on a $5,000 bond. But attorneys for the DHS challenged the bond order, even though Mr. Gomez-Sanchez was found to be neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.

“It is outrageous that our immigration prison system drops individuals with mental disabilities like Mr. Gomez-Sanchez into a legal black hole for years on end,” said Sean Riordan, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties. “It is particularly tragic that Mr. Gomez-Sanchez remains in detention, because an immigration judge has already determined that he is not a danger and should be in his family’s care.”

The exact number of detainees with severe mental disabilities is unclear. Yet, unlike our nation’s criminal justice system, the immigration system has no standard procedures to resolve cases against detainees with mental disabilities who have been ruled incompetent to follow the proceedings against them. The petitions filed today aim to end the haphazard approach that has led to such tragic circumstances for Mr. Franco and Mr. Gomez-Sanchez, and which could undoubtedly lead to other, similar cases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California is disturbed by recent reports that two LAPD gang officers fatally shot an unarmed, 27-year-old autistic man in Koreatown on March 20th.

The following statement can be attributed to ACLU/SC Executive Director Ramona Ripston.

“We are deeply troubled by news reports that two LAPD gang officers shot Steven Eugene Washington, an unarmed, 27-year-old autistic man. The initial news coverage of the incident shed little light on why lethal force was necessary when officers were not responding to any report of criminal activity, and had no reason to suspect Mr. Washington of a crime just because they heard a loud noise as they were driving past.

“We fully expect the department to conduct a full and thorough investigation into this tragic incident. But we urge the LAPD to go beyond a one-time investigation examining the conduct of the officers, and take a broader look at changes in department policy and training that could help prevent such a tragedy from recurring.

“The consent decree between the Department of Justice and the LAPD addressed how to improve interaction with individuals with mental disabilities, and the department has recently undertaken a training program aimed specifically at interactions with individuals with autism. The LAPD needs to ensure that these programs are effective and adequately impressed upon the patrol officers that are entrusted with the safety of all members of our community.”

By Bob Pool
Robert Rosebrock didn't see any action during his two-year stint as an Army draftee in the mid-1960s. He was a corporal who worked as a clerk and a driver for the commanding general at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, after all.
But he's made up for it with his two-year skirmish with officials at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Brentwood.
For 103 Sundays in a row, Rosebrock has led a group of military veterans in a protest of what they claim is the VA's commercialization of the sprawling Wilshire Boulevard medical center's grounds.
VA officials paid little attention for the first 65 Sundays to the small band of mostly aging veterans holding protest signs and displaying American flags outside the medical center's gates. Then Rosebrock turned that around by turning the flag upside down.
When the 67-year-old West Los Angeles event planner attached the upended stars and stripes to the hospital grounds' fence as "a symbol of distress," federal police swooped in. An associate director of the hospital said she ordered police to take action because she considered the display to be "a desecration of the flag" and feared that mental health patients might have been sensitive to an "inappropriate display on VA property."
After that, Rosebrock and the other protesters were confronted each time they attached the flag to the fence upside down. Six times police cited Rosebrock for unauthorized demonstrations on VA property.
The VA later requested that a federal court dismiss the citations. But on Feb. 28, VA police confiscated the protesters' upside-down flag when they refused to remove it from the fence.
On Tuesday, Rosebrock fired back by joining with the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit that alleges the VA has denied his free-speech rights. The U.S. District Court complaint names Donna Beiter, director of the VA's Los Angeles healthcare system, and Ronald Mathis, the VA's police chief.
"It makes me sad that the VA would treat any American, especially a veteran, like this," said Peter J. Eliasberg, managing attorney for the ACLU's Los Angeles office. "It shows disrespect for the Constitution and to veterans."
The announcement of the lawsuit took place outside the VA's gates where the weekly protests occur. Rosebrock and another veteran, Ernie Hilger, 68, of North Hills, held the flag with its stars facing the ground instead of hanging it on the fence. Nonetheless, a VA police car raced across the hospital lawn when authorities spied the upside-down flag. There was no confrontation, however.
Brentwood VA officials referred inquiries about the lawsuit to the agency's Washington office. A spokesman there said officials were preparing a response that would be issued later.
Rosebrock said he and the other protesters will display the flag upside down by hand until he receives what he hopes is a permanent injunction against the VA.
He said his group has proposed a $2.5-billion redevelopment of the VA's 388 acres in Brentwood. Seventy-year-old structures -- some of which are vacant -- would be replaced with high-rise housing for veterans under the group's plan.
Rosebrock said the protesters' immediate goal is to persuade the VA to turn the lawn area near the corner of Wilshire and San Vicente boulevards into temporary housing for veterans, who make up 15% of Los Angeles' homeless population. The open space is currently designated for use as a park by a Brentwood group.
Rosebrock said he and the others will be back Sunday to protest for the 104th time.