Garland says judges may consider criminal illegal immigrants' mental health when considering asylum claims
A DOJ appeals board in 2014 said that mental health should not be considered when considering the seriousness of a crime
By Adam Shaw , Bill Melugin | Fox News
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday said that immigration judges can now consider the mental health status of an illegal immigrant convicted of an aggravated felony when considering their asylum claim or whether to withhold their deportation -- overruling a prior decision by a top immigration appeals board.
The Immigration and Nationality Act makes illegal immigrants ineligible for both asylum and withholding of removal -- where illegal immigrants are not returned because they have a fear of persecution if returned to their country of origin -- if they have been convicted of a "particularly serious crime" that constitutes a danger to the community.
The DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review’s Board of Immigration Appeals had previously ruled in 2014 (in a case known as "Matter of G-G-S") that, when judging that seriousness of the crime, "a person’s mental health is not a factor to be considered in a particularly serious crime analysis" given that judges are not to go beyond the decisions of the criminal judge, and that mental condition does not relate to the conviction and the facts that make them a danger to the community.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/garland-judges-criminal-illegal-immigrants-mental-health-asylum-claim
