- By Marija Ozolins, Boston College Law Student
“David* suffers from an illness called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” I informed a group of family members in their dining room, a several hour drive south of Washington, D.C. David’s older sister covered her eyes as I described the hallucinations, depression, suicidal urges, attachment disorder, and severe anxiety that David had suffered undiagnosed for years. There was silence in the room, and a mixture of relief and worry took hold as David’s family realized what this diagnosis could mean for their family.
Two weeks earlier, the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition had assigned a fellow law student intern and me to represent David during his removal proceedings in Immigration Court. We had just six weeks to gather evidence, prepare the theory of David’s case, and write a brief for the Court. Our supervisors were forthright about the difficulty of David’s case due to his extensive criminal history. On paper, David didn’t cut a very sympathetic figure. He had dropped out of high school and amassed a list of convictions of varying degrees of gravity, some of which resulted in jail or prison sentences.
I was daunted by the challenge of convincing an Immigration Judge to allow David to stay in the United States, and meeting David for the first time inside a Virginia detention facility didn’t do much to inspire faith that we might succeed. As we shook hands and sat down to talk about his case, David looked at the floor and fidgeted with his uniform. I wasn’t sure David would trust us.
But with each visit David’s story slowly unfolded, and in turn gave us hope of winning his case. David told us about his childhood as an orphan during his country’s brutal civil war, after witnessing soldiers violently abduct both of his parents. He told us about arriving in the United States as a teenage refugee, and how alone he felt. He told us about his horrific and recurring hallucinations, and how drinking alcohol was the only way he knew how to sleep at night. He told us about the mistakes he made again and again while under the influence of alcohol. And finally, he told us about his in-prison diagnosis of PTSD and alcoholism and his successful treatment of both.
The month we spent getting to know David was the key to our eventual victory in Immigration Court. David’s traumatic past and resulting mental health disorders, coupled with the complete lack of mental health care in his country of origin, led the Immigration Judge to determine that David possessed what are known as “countervailing equities” available to a narrow class of noncitizens. These are humanitarian considerations that an adjudicator may consider in deciding whether or not to deport a person that holds refugee status.
It would have been easy to dismiss David as a recidivist who should be removed from our country. But to do that would be to ignore the larger realities that led David to where he is today, and to ignore the rehabilitation and promise that David showed after getting the treatment he so badly needed. And to dismiss David without considering his context would be to thoughtlessly dispose of an even-tempered and hard-working man who has learned to value the importance of remorse, second chances, and above all, family.
I hope that David’s story can serve as a reminder that hidden behind the immigration policy debates are real people who have made very human mistakes. David’s story is particularly compelling, but not exceptional; immigration policy affects hundreds of thousands of people just like him and not unlike many of us fortunate enough to be born in this country.
David was lucky to have CAIR Coalition with him in court on the day of his victory. Nearly 80 percent of detained noncitizens go to court without a lawyer, and their chances of winning are drastically reduced. Please consider volunteering through CAIR Coalition to provide pro se assistance or to serve as pro bono counsel for this vulnerable and underserved population. Visit the CAIR Coalition website to view some of the meaningful volunteer opportunities available for both attorneys and non-attorneys.
* A pseudonym is used to protect privacy.
