From Persecution to Prison

The Health Consequences of Detention for Asylum Seekers

The practice of imprisoning asylum seekers who flee to America to escape torture, abuse, and persecution in their own countries has damaging effects on the well-being of these individuals.

In the first systematic and comprehensive study examining the health of detained asylum seekers, the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and Physicians for Human Rights found that the mental health of asylum seekers interviewed for this study was extremely poor and worsened the longer that individuals were in detention.

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