The Second Circuit has addressed the required findings that an Immigration Judge must make when adjudicating an application filed by a mentally incompetent individual.
“[W]e hold that to protect the rights and privileges of noncitizens who may be incompetent, an IJ must: (1) make a finding as to whether the noncitizen is incompetent; and, if so, (2) generate a record of sufficient findings regarding the character, scope, and severity of the noncitizen’s incompetency; (3) implement safeguards that address the character, scope, and severity of the noncitizen’s incompetency; and (4) articulate how and why the safeguards adequately and appropriately protect the noncitizen’s rights and privileges under the INA and the Due Process Clause. These findings are interdependent and obligatory, and a reviewing court cannot affirm the ultimate adequacy and appropriateness of safeguards to protect the noncitizen’s rights and privileges in the absence of sufficient findings at each step of the Matter of M-A-M- framework. We note that in cases of plausibly remediable incompetency, the range of safeguards IJs may consider includes halting the proceedings via administrative closure or termination without prejudice as to the government’s right to reopen.”
“It is troubling and hard to understand why other measures that could have helped ameliorate the ways Reid’s limitations disadvantaged him during the hearing were not discussed or implemented. For example, it appears that if Reid is indeed incompetent, his psychologist Dr. Cort and his social worker Alexis Donovan both alluded to the possibility of his continued treatment allowing him to recover some measure of competency and participate more fully in his deportation hearing. If that is true, a continuance or administrative closure to await his possible restoration to or improvement of competence might be a desirable safeguard. It is also possible that other safeguards would enable Reid’s counsel to more definitively establish the number of days he was imprisoned. We do not know, however, what would be appropriate without a record of sufficient findings on whether Reid is incompetent and if so, what safeguards would address his limitations.”
The full text of Reid v. Garland can be found here: