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Mind Springs Health is in discussions with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, about providing inpatient services at West Springs Hospital in Grand Junction for ICE detainees.
Mind Springs, which offers mental health care across large swaths of the Western Slope, has not inked any agreements with ICE yet. However, the organizations have discussed a potential deal.
According to Larkin Health’s Dr. Nicholas Torres, Mind Springs’ interim CEO, ICE is in need of providers who can care for adult patients experiencing acute psychiatric episodes, most of which have been deemed unfit to maintain competency in immigration courts. Larkin Health has an established relationship with ICE and has provided health care to its detainees in Florida for roughly 20 years.
“This is just an initial discussion,” Dr. Torres said in a phone call on Monday. “We have no agreement in place yet.”
He added that Mind Springs would have no role in their patients’ legal processes, and staff would focus solely on providing mental health care.
“We just help get them restored to a state where they can sit and make sound answers and … (are) able to answer questions about their immigration status,” Torres said.
Mind Springs was previously considering whether or not to offer inpatient services to unaccompanied minors in ICE custody, but during a recent site visit, Dr. Torres said ICE officials were more focused on providing acute psychiatric services to adults.
Dr. Torres said they could offer ICE as many beds as West Springs Hospital has available, but he is unsure if detainees would be local patients living in Colorado or if ICE would transport patients from other parts of the U.S. Their current occupancy is roughly 35 patients, and the hospital has 48 total beds, so Mind Springs could provide care to about a dozen detainees at this time.
Dr. Torres was not sure on Monday how much money Mind Springs could make from a possible deal, but he estimated, depending on how many patients they served, it could be between $100,000 and $300,000 per month.
Possible implications
ICE is required to maintain a set of standards within its detention facilities and provide several services to detainees, including mental health care. However, several organizations have filed lawsuits against the agency in recent years claiming they’ve failed to adhere to those standards.
While a deal between ICE and Mind Springs would provide more health care to detainees, some attorneys on the Western Slope worry that establishing a network of providers in Grand Junction could make it easier for the federal agency to expand its presence there.
Immigration Attorney Jennifer Smith, based in Lakewood and Glenwood Springs, feels conflicted about the potential partnership.
“Having had clients in detention who've suffered medical and mental health issues, getting them services has been a challenge,” Smith said. “There's a part of me that's like, ‘If they can get services, that would be amazing.’ … But I certainly wouldn't want this to be a backdoor way for ICE to then say, ‘Well, you must have a mental health problem. I don't have a bed here, but I have one over here,’ as a way to expand their detention capability.”
Mind Springs’ Dr. Torres said he doesn’t know how ICE detention works, and any service they might provide to detainees in Grand Junction would be completely separate from detention operations.
“I don't think that the need for mental services results in more detainees or people being detained,” Dr. Torres said. “I think there are people who are detained that have mental health needs, and those are the services that we provide.”
Even with the distinction, fear among immigrant communities is mounting across the country. Smith worries that a formal partnership between the two organizations could result in fewer immigrants seeking care with Mind Springs, the biggest mental health care provider in western Colorado.
“I think for sure it will cause members of the community to not seek services if they think there's some chance that that could create some kind of connection to ICE,” said Smith.
Alex Sanchez, the president and CEO of Latino advocacy nonprofit Voces Unidas, echoed Smith’s concern, citing previous issues at Mind Springs that have sown distrust on the Western Slope.
“We already have lots of scandals with Mind Springs and lots of hesitation from members of our community in going to Mind Springs,” Sanchez said. “The general public, not just those that are being detained by ICE, would be more fearful that their information, their data would then be shared with a federal agency that would be hostile to our community.”
Dr. Torres said Larkin Health’s work in Florida alongside ICE has been successful in helping detainees recover from trauma and proceed with their immigration cases.
“I think about what they're willing to go through to get here,” Dr. Torres said. “Being able to help get them to a point where they can sit in front of a judge and tell their story and be able to get on with their life and be successful, it's very rewarding to the providers and to work with what we do.”