Fleeing torture and persecution: trauma faced by asylum seekers changes their brains

With increasing numbers of border crossings, psychiatry students will be learning more about caring for asylum seekers Friday, as part of a training on patients fleeing torture and persecution.

Dr. Shawn Sidhu presented at Texas Tech teaching the audience the steps he takes to interview and document mental health issues asylum seekers face while in detention.
Asylum seekers suffer from double the normal rate of depression, PTSD, and psychosis compared to the general population, Sidhu said, and it makes asylum cases harder to win.

Sidhu explained trauma physically shrinks parts of the brain responsible for memory, making it harder for people to recall details sometimes needed in their hearings.

He said besides the problems faced by asylum seekers on their journey, detention doesn’t always present a good environment for them to recover.

“No, it can be pretty tough to come by a mental health provider, a doctor, in detention. Sometimes I’ve had people who are suicidal or actively hallucinating. It’s very difficult for them to get medication or medical treatment while they’re in detention,” Sidhu said.

Only two percent of asylum cases are approved in the El Paso sector, and attorneys said examining mental trauma could help win more hearings. Local mental health advocates are working to have more people trained to run evaluations.

“There’s not a lot of this training in the community, so this was a good opportunity to train clinicians and future clinicians,” said Nellie Mendoza, from the National Alliance on mental Illness.

Having people trained in evaluations and working with law enforcement to run them takes work but is possible, Sidhu said.

“It is a very bureaucratic system, so sometimes weaving your way through it could be difficult, but it’s not that hard if you’re interested,” Sidhu said.

Organizers said it’s important to get more people trained.

“This is a need, This is a need at the moment. This is our political climate at the moment. If anybody, even from the community and you don’t have a background in mental health, you can come, get trained, and receive that certification,” Mendoza explained.

The mental health evaluations are attorney-requested and don’t require formal certification from a governing body, but proper training is important for the evaluations to hold weight in court.

The training comes amidst growing numbers of border apprehensions by Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection, who published statistics showing a surge of crossings along the southwest border in August. The figures, from the Department of Homeland Security, show a pronounced increased consistent with past seasonal changes.

Homeland Security figures marked 13,000 family units apprehended, a 38 percent increase for August, about 3,500 more than in July.

Nearly half of those family units were from Guatemala, where immigrants and asylum seekers have cited excessive violence and persecution pushing them out of the country.

As migrant crossings increase so have the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border. The Tornillo migrant camp for unaccompanied children has been expanded to 3,800 from its June capacity of 400 beds. 1,400 of those beds are set on a reserve status.

“These temporary beds will be brought online incrementally as needed. We will continue to assess the need for this temporary shelter at Tornillo Land Port of Entry in Tornillo, Texas, based on the projected need for beds and current capacity of the program,” said Kenneth Wolfe from Health and Human services in an email to ABC-7.

The increase is because more minors have been crossing the border unaccompanied, not because of family separations, according to a Health and Human Services statement.

“The need for the continuation of the operation at Tornillo is based on the number of unaccompanied alien children in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, who crossed the border alone without their parent or legal guardian. “Family separations” resulting from the zero tolerance policy ended on June 20, 2018 and are not driving this need,” Wolfe wrote.

ABC-7 has toured the facility and were informed medical care was being administered from the medical tent.