Judge orders mental health services to border families who were separated

[Judge John A. Kronstadt of the United States District Court in Los Angeles] has ruled that the government must provide mental health services to thousands of migrant parents and children who experienced psychological harm as a result of the Trump administration’s practice of separating families.

The decision, issued late Tuesday, marks a rare instance of the government being held legally accountable for mental trauma brought about by its policies — in this case, border security measures that locked thousands of migrant parents in detention while their children were placed in government shelters or foster homes.

[...]

Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer with Public Counsel, which brought the case along with the law firm Sidley Austin, said the judge had found that the separation policy violated the families’ constitutional rights.

“You cannot have a policy of deliberately trying to injure a family bond,” he said. “Cruelty cannot be part of an enforcement policy, and here it was the cornerstone of the policy.”

[...]

“This is truly groundbreaking,” Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, said of the decision. “The court is recognizing that when a government creates a danger that inflicts trauma, the government is responsible for providing a solution. It is not something I have seen a court do before.”

[...]

In the past, the “state-created danger” doctrine has been applied when a police officer ejected a person from a bar late at night in very cold weather, or when a public employer failed to address toxic mold that caused workers to fall ill.

[...]

Thousands of parents spent months in often agonizing limbo, plaintiffs in the case argued, unable to communicate with their children and in many cases not knowing even where the children were being held.

The judge’s preliminary injunction will require the government to arrange mental health screenings along with psychological counseling and other services, perhaps long term. The process could be cumbersome and expensive because thousands of migrants who were affected by the policy are spread across the country and are in various stages of immigration court proceedings. Many already have been deported and would presumably not be eligible for any mental health care.

  NYT

I presume the Trump administration will appeal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.