Mentally Disabled Immigrants Remain in Detention for Years After Serving Time for Crimes, Their Attorneys Allege
By Andrew Becker | Los Angeles Times | March 29, 2010
Two mentally disabled Mexican immigrants, facing deportation for criminal assault convictions for which they have already served their time, continue to be held in detention facilities in violation of their constitutional rights, according to separate lawsuits filed in federal court.
Jose Franco-Gonzalez, 29, of Costa Mesa and Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez, 48, of San Bernardino have languished in detention facilities for years because authorities deemed them mentally incompetent, their attorneys said.
Their deportation cases were closed in 2005 and 2006 and the men have since been forgotten, shuttled through a network of jails, psychiatric hospitals and detention centers, they said.
>> Read more in the Los Angeles Times.
A Council on Foreign Relations report on recommended fixes to the nation's broken immigration system, released yesterday, didn't just outline the numerous ways to address the mess. It also offered some dissenting voices, among them ending the practice of giving citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrant parents.
As can be expected with a new administration in Washington, there has been a stream of reports, studies, and recommendations on how to fix the nation's broken immigration system penned by think-tanks, NGOs, advocacy groups and the like since President Obama took office in January.
