Immigration Law Clinic Helps Free Former UC Davis Student
The King Hall Immigration Law Clinic helped to gain a release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and a cancellation of a removal order on behalf of an Ethiopian immigrant last week. The man, a former UC Davis student who had acted as the head of his family after he and his siblings had been orphaned and then separated during the Ethiopian-Eritrean War, had been in ICE detention center facing deportation for eight months and was released March 12.
Professor Holly Cooper has known the client since he was reunited with his two younger sisters in Oakland 10 years ago, when she took on their case as a first-year lawyer and won asylum for the children. The man went on to attend UC Davis on a full scholarship, but developed a serious mental illness during his final year and did not graduate. Cooper said that like many of the mentally ill, the man began to use drugs to try to self-medicate his symptoms, and this resulted in a series of minor contacts with the law. Last year, he was arrested and sent to an ICE detention center in Arizona for deportation. During his eight months there, he received no treatment for his mental illness or other health problems and was suffering from decompensation, a worsening of his condition.
Immigration Law Clinic students Grace Law '09, Katherine Dick '10, and Jessica Zweng '09 were compelled to try to help. Zweng flew to Arizona to check on the client's well-being and confirmed that he was not receiving any treatment, but despite repeated Freedom of Information Act requests, the ICE would not release his medical files. Dick drafted a request to change venues to San Francisco so the client could have family visits and his treatment could be monitored, but the request was denied, largely because without the medical files, it could not be proven that he would receive better treatment in San Francisco. Law filed a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) request for the records and after much advocacy received proof that he not received any treatment throughout his stay in Arizona, despite repeated requests for medical attention.
The change of venue request was granted, and when the man arrived in California he was immediately civilly committed, and the law students coordinated with the mental health staff to ensure proper treatment. The commitment posed problems, however, since the man would not be able to adequately represent himself in immigration proceedings. The students consulted with Greg Pleasants, an attorney at the Mental Health Advocacy Institute in Los Angeles, and he agreed to author a motion for guardian ad litem to enable the man's sister to represent him. The students also brought in five expert witnesses to support the contention that the man would not receive adequate treatment if deported to Ethiopia, authored a 60-page brief on asylum law, and prepared the testimony of their witnesses.
At the March 12 hearing, the sister told the court of her brother's condition and family history. "Her testimony was poetic and deeply moving for everyone," said Professor Cooper. "Ms. Dick did a textbook direct examination - where the witness is the center of attention and the lawyer seems to effortlessly navigate the individual through their testimony."
The testimony was so powerful that the trial attorney determined he did not need to hear more and the judge granted cancellation of removal. The family was ecstatic, but soon found themselves facing another problem: the client unexpectedly had been released in San Francisco and disappeared. Zweng, Dick, and King Hall student Carolyn Hsu '09 assisted with the family's search, which ended hours later when he was found on the steps of their house in Oakland. He had begged for money and taken the BART train home.
UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic