REPRESENTING MIGRANTS AT ST ELIZABETHS HOSPITAL
by
Paul Grussendorf
When I was Director of the Immigration Clinic at George Washington University Law School we were the only non-profit in Washington, D.C. that would represent so-called “criminal aliens” — migrants who are facing deportation because of criminal convictions. And we were the only organization that would assist such migrants with mental issues who were housed in St. Elizabeths Hospital.
The hospital, or St E’s as it is affectionately called by staff, in addition to being D.C.’s public psychiatric facility “for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness who need intensive inpatient care,” also provides evaluations and care to patients who are committed by the courts. The hospital was famous for housing several notorious patients like John Hinckley, President Reagan’s would-be assassin, and the poet Ezra Pound after his post-WWII conviction for treason.
The hospital also served as the nation’s holding cell for migrants who were in custody for deportation hearings and who, during their detention, might begin to display signs of mental illness. Naturally many of them also had criminal convictions. They would be shipped to the hospital from all around the country for evaluation, where they would then remain while their deport hearing was concluded in the Washington immigration court, located in Ballston, Northern Virginia. They were invariably penniless and without counsel.
Our clients were housed in the original central building, a red brick affair built in 1855. We met with them on the lower level which still had the original cobble stone floor, lending a Gothic atmosphere to the place. The building was set centrally in a 350 acre campus. We drove past leafy oak and maple trees to reach the parking lot.
I established a relationship with the social workers at the hospital, including the very empathic psychiatric nurse practitioner who worked with each one of our clients. Having built a close relationship over time, I would receive a phone call whenever a new arrival needed a screening for possible legal representation. Then I would drive with a couple of law students across the Anacostia River to the campus of the hospital, which was set up on an attractive location overlooking the river. Over the course of a decade I represented approximately thirty patients there, either consulting them about their options and possibility of remaining in the U.S. or actually representing them in their deport hearing. I typically had several meetings with the nurse practitioner about an individual case; if possible before meeting a client for the first time, so that I could get a heads up about possible diagnosis, medications my potential client was receiving, and important details such as family background; and again later, after the patient had been involved with various programs and therapeutic regimens prescribed by the nurse. Often there was a dramatic change in a client’s temperament and mental acuity after having the opportunity to participate in therapy and supportive social activities. Such positive change in health was crucial for our presentation to a judge and could be decisive for a good outcome.
I will always remember with fondness the career INS officer who was the supervisor of the immigrant detention unit, Officer Richard Curtis. For me he represented the most positive attributes of the INS uniformed services. He had begun his career as a Border Patrol officer in San Diego and after a decade was transferred to the hospital unit. He treated his wards with dignity and compassion. On the rare occasion that we actually won a case involving one of his customers, he celebrated with us, delighted that the individual had gotten a fair shake and would be leaving the hospital.
Of all the patients I worked closely with a couple still come to mind. My Swiss-German client Hans Dieter had escaped from a Swiss mental institution, made his way to Germany, and somehow gotten on a boat that brought him to America. After a year of bumming around the northeast, he crossed the border into Canada, where the Royal Canadian Mounties found him passed-out alongside a highway. When they learned that he had recently entered from the States, they placed him back across the border, and he was detained by U.S. Border Patrol officials and sent to St. E’s.
During his period of incarceration at the hospital he had managed to avoid serious evaluation by his captors, pretending that he only spoke German. I could communicate with him in German and I was able to get him to loosen up and tell me what was really on his mind. He had a bizarre way of expressing his disorientation. While talking, he had a fascinating tendency to slowly move and arrange his limbs, lifting one leg and wrapping it around the other, putting one arm behind his body and balancing on it, slowly twisting himself into a pretzel, the whole time maintaining steady eye contact and speaking as if nothing odd were happening. I saw him go through this ritual several times.
He was convinced he had been abducted by aliens in Canada. He said he hadn’t even meant to enter Canada, but rather had blacked out somewhere in Vermont, and when he came to he was in Canada.
“So that’s your proof that you were abducted by aliens?”
“Yes, and because after I woke up, one leg was shorter than the other.”
He wanted me to help him to apply for asylum as protection from the space aliens. On my third visit he confided in me that he expected, after being granted asylum, to be put up in an apartment and to be provided for by the State. He thought the conditions were too harsh in the Swiss hospital where he had last been incarcerated, and life should be easy in the U.S. living on the dole as a mental patient. I had to correct his misimpression that the U.S. was happy to just take in and provide for every foreign mental patient that came along. I assured him that there was no provision for the government to provide food and board for anyone, even if they were granted asylum, except of course should he remain incarcerated at the hospital, and that in my expert opinion his case was very weak. The government wanted to deport him back to Switzerland, and I couldn’t imagine any immigration judge granting him asylum protection from the space aliens.
After several such heart to heart talks in German over a period of a few weeks, he decided to abandon the façade that he couldn’t speak English, and was willing to communicate with the doctor and nurses, and on his next court date I informed the judge that Hans Dieter had decided to return to Switzerland, where he felt the food was more agreeable than that provided by St. E’s.
Another one-of-a-kind client was Jose Barsey Duran from the Dominican Republic. He had convictions for drug possession and attempted sales. He was a heroin addict, having begun to self-medicate after his wife was killed in a car accident. During his recent prison stint he had converted to Christianity. He had carved a cross on his forehead with a pen knife to demonstrate his devotion to the Lord.
When I was preparing him for his deportation hearing, he told me that God periodically spoke to him. Being naturally curious, I asked him, “And what does he say when he speaks to you?”
In a straight voice he answered, “He says not to play with myself and not to eat the pussy.”
Although I could appreciate those words of wisdom from the Higher Power, I admonished him to be sure not to tell the judge the words that God spoke to him, that it definitely wouldn’t improve his chances with the judge. Later when we had our hearing before a matronly female judge, I carefully avoided that topic on direct examination. However, as Jose’s testimony concluded, the judge herself was curious about what it was that God said to Jose, and she had to ask him the question, “What does God say to you?” I could only stare at the papers in front of me while he matter-of-factly answered her question. It was unclear from the judge’s expression whether she fully appreciated the profound import of the Lord’s advice.
Tragically, afterI left the university the clinic dropped the representation of St. E’s patients, leaving them without any recourse to legal assistance. This only underscores the need for a Public Defender network to provide representation for all detained migrants. The End
Excerpt from My Trials: Inside America’s Deportation Factories