Thread: Hospital stops taking certain ICE detainees

Hospital stops taking certain ICE detainees

Mental health facility heeds group's concerns

By Greg Moran, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. June 11, 2009

A La Mesa psychiatric hospital has stopped accepting nonemergency cases of mentally ill immigration detainees, but the issue of whether such patients can be shackled to their beds or have other restrictions remains unresolved.

San Diego County and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are conducting separate probes into conditions at Alvarado Parkway Institute, a private mental health hospital where mentally ill immigration violators were taken for treatment.

The advocacy group Disability Rights California has complained that the conditions under which patients are held there violates state laws governing the treatment of mentally ill patients.

The conditions, which include shackling patients to their beds 24 hours a day and not allowing the use of the phone, family visits or television, were reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune  on May 18. They are conditions that are required by ICE for security reasons for the detainees.

Patrick Ziemer, the institute's CEO, said the hospital stopped accepting referral patients from ICE after the news story appeared. But Ziemer said federal law requires the hospital to take patients who need emergency care, and those patients would be accepted.

They would still be shackled and held under the conditions ICE requires, Ziemer said. “We would still have to follow their security requirements,â€

If the detainees would show up for court hearings, there would be no need for restraints.
Legal immirants are less likely to walk away from mental hospitals than illegal immigrants. Sounds like common sense to me.