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Haitian asylum seeker with mental illness held six months without hearing; judge orders release

Jun 23, 2026·Location: Burlington, VT

Country of origin: Haiti

Haitian asylum seeker with mental illness held six months without hearing; judge orders release
Photo via vtdigger.org

A Haitian asylum seeker in her 40s, who had lived in Brazil before entering the U.S. in June 2024 on humanitarian parole, was detained for over six months at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility after ICE arrested her following a domestic disturbance in Massachusetts. She had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and severe anxiety during a prior psychiatric hospitalization, and a hearing revealed conflicting assessments of her mental health among the facility's mental health providers, a corrections officer, and outside clinicians, a dispute the judge did not resolve. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Lanthier ruled that her prolonged detention without an individualized hearing violated her Fifth Amendment due process rights and ordered her release, giving her legal team time to arrange her return to Massachusetts, though the judge did not rule on claims of deliberate indifference to her mental health needs.

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