Garland says judges may consider criminal illegal immigrants' mental health when considering asylum claims
Fox News
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday said that immigration judges can now consider a criminal illegal immigrant’s mental health status when considering their asylum claim or whether to withhold their deportation -- overturning a prior ruling by a top appeals board.
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.