Thread: Judge Orders U.S. to Supply Mentally Deficient Illegal Immig

Judge Orders U.S. to Supply Mentally Deficient Illegal Immigrants With Lawyers to Fight Deportation

By Diane Macedo

Published January 05, 2011

A federal judge's ruling could pave the way for taxpayer-funded legal representation for immigrants facing deportation in cases of mental incapacity -- a move praised by civil libertarians but opposed by advocates of stricter immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Court Judge Dolly Gee recently ordered the U.S. government to give two mentally incapacitated illegal immigrants legal representation to fight their deportations. The decision was triggered by the case of Jose Franco-Gonzalez, 30, who spent nearly five years in immigration custody after pleading guilty to assault with a deadly weapon because authorities determined he was too mentally incompetent to represent himself in his own deportation hearings. Traditionally public counsel is not supplied in U.S. deportation cases

Gee ruled that Franco and another plaintiff be released and that additional plaintiffs in the case be given representation for their hearings, pleasing supporters who say the decision is a first step in ensuring that the rights of the mentally ill are not ignored.

But critics say the decision inappropriately places a new financial burden on American taxpayers and ignores the risk of keeping sometimes dangerous immigrants in the U.S.

Franco, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, comes from a family of U.S. citizens and legal residents and was on his way to obtaining legal resident status when he pleaded guilty in April 2005 to assault with a deadly weapon, according to the complaint.

The government moved to deport him, but an immigration judge ordered the proceedings be closed based on Franco's diagnosed moderate mental retardation and inability to represent himself.

Even so, Franco remained in immigration custody for four and a half years without having a hearing on his detention until December 2009, the complaint says. He was released in March 2010, three days after the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of him and five other plaintiffs with similar cases.

Click here to read the complaint with information on Franco and other plaintiffs.

"These are individuals who get lost in the system because of their serious mental illnesses. Many of them suffer from hallucinations, many of them suffer from paranoia caused by their hallucinations and they're just simply incapacitated and unable to represent themselves," Michael Steinberg, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told FoxNews.com.

But retired Immigration and Naturalization Service senior agent Michael Cutler says it's not the government's responsibility to provide legal defense for aliens who face removal from the United States.

"We are under extreme economic difficulties right now," Cutler told FoxNews.com. "For this court to create a legal precedence where aliens would be entitled to get lawyers fees paid for by the government when it's very likely, based on what these people were involved with, that they're never going to be really productive members of our society, flies in the face of what's in the best interest for America and Americans."

Cutler says judges need to remember why we have immigration laws.

"The fundamental reason for immigration laws is to keep aliens out of our country or remove aliens from our country whose presence is harmful to our nation and/or our citizens. We have people involved with mental illness and prone to fits of violence based on mental illness -- where's the positive impact this has on America?" he said. "The idea that we want to be compassionate is misplaced if one of these guys goes off and injures someone or worse."

Steinberg says regardless of their mental states the immigrants in question, some of them legal, may have meritorious defenses and have a right to have those defenses heard.

"They may be actually able to stay here, and I think any society is judged by how they treat those who are without ability to help themselves," he said.

Steinberg says he and his colleagues plan to file a motion "promptly" to transform the case into a class-action suit so that it will pertain to all detainees with mental disabilities.

Charles Miller, spokesperson for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, said the department couldn’t comment on the case "because it’s an ongoing matter right now."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/05/ju ... z1AF4E0wLR

"Why can't they just deport these guys, instead of wasting more tax payers money?"

Cloward and Piven baby .... can you say brake the system boys and girls

Chinese American Hero: Judge Dolly M. Gee
By Chinese American Heroes– April 21, 2010
Posted in: Chinese American Heroes
This is Week 40 of AsianWeek’s salute to Chinese American heroes, in strategic partnership with Chinese American Heroes, a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to documenting the contributions of Chinese Americans to America and the world.

This week we honor Federal District Court Judge Dolly M. Gee, the first Chinese American woman to become a federal district court judge.

It’s hard for many people to imagine today but within living memory the career opportunities for Chinese Americans were quite limited. In the 1930s, a Chinese American graduate with a prestigious law degree from UC Berkeley or UCLA could expect to find a career as a very well educated waiter or janitor. American businesses and organizations weren’t prepared to accept Chinese Americans into their professions no matter how well they were educated. World War II and the burgeoning civil rights movement in the postwar period changed all that. By the 1970s and 1980s Chinese Americans were not only graduating in increasing numbers from the most prestigious law schools but also earning professional positions with bright futures. There is now even talk of a possible Chinese or Asian American member of the US Supreme Court. No longer can it be argued (an argument sometimes cloaking an underlying racism) that Chinese American lawyers lack the experience to be judges.

Born to immigrants from rural China who respectively became an aerospace engineer and a seamstress in America, Dolly Gee grew up in Southern California. Her mother refused to ever teach her how to sew because she never wanted her daughter to have to do the same work that she did. Taking this lesson to heart, Dolly Gee graduated from UCLA Law School in 1984. She became a pioneer lawyer in the fields of labor law, workplace harassment, and discrimination cases. From 1994 to 1999 she was a member of the Federal Service Impasses Panel where she mediated disputes between federal agencies and federal sector labor unions. In 2002 she helped settle a class-action lawsuit between Walt Disney Corporation and its retired and active employees over lifetime healthcare benefits.

In December 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to become a federal district court judge in the Central District of California. US Senator Barbara Boxer honored Gee upon her confirmation stating that, “As a daughter of immigrants from rural China, she personifies the American dream.â€

I refuse. Remove the Illegal alien now. I demand it as a citizen of a sovereign United States.
Stop handing our money to these so called Immigration lawyers. That is the whole scam and the judge is complicit in this theft...

So, let me get this straight...because a non-citizen breaks the sovreignty of this country by illegally crossing the border and commits a crime (felony) while within the confines of this country...we have to give free legal representation to fight a deportation hearing? What doesn't sound right about this...how about EVERYTHING!!!

This country has sold out to the bleeding hearts that think we have to pay for everything...deport the SOB and be done with it! Nuff said...

What we are witnessing is the killing of America by the far left they have destroyed our schools, media and presently working on government while they are less then 25% of our society they are well organized and relentless in the hating of America.