Immigrants in the United States without proper documentation face the risk of being subject to deportation (“removal”) proceedings and being detained. Decisions about deportation and immigration detention are made by immigration judges (IJs) in immigration courts (ICs) around the country. Some applications are also decided by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and are characterized as “benefits” rather than relief. Psychological evidence is a key component of many forms of removal relief and benefits (e.g., asylum applications, hardship, competency). Decisions made by IJs, immigration attorneys, and mental health professionals in IC can have serious consequences for immigrants, including deportation and detention. This chapter reviews some of the psychological issues involved in immigration law and the legal decision-making involved in removal relief applications. It also outlines the ways in which forensic mental health assessments can aid IJs in their decision-making process and offers recommendations for research and policy in this area.

In any legal case, there is a pool of possible forensic evaluators whom a court might order, or an attorney might retain, to conduct a forensic mental health evaluation. There is a growing body of research showing that these evaluators are not interchangeable. They differ somewhat in their attitudes, personality traits, opinions about how to conduct evaluations, and thresholds for reaching conclusions. These differences, coupled with the subjectivity inherent to psycholegal questions and the pull of adversarial allegiance to retaining parties, can lead to biased decision-making. Although there is some support for specialized training as a mechanism for reducing these biases, even increased training will never eliminate the subjective clinical judgment necessary for some aspects of forensic assessment. The goal is to work toward reducing the impact of hidden biases on case outcomes, which should lead to better decisions by both evaluators and consumers of their work.

An increasing body literature has underscored the need for clinical methods and approaches to be able to generalise to clients from different cultural backgrounds. This has led to a broader discussion on the unique needs of offenders and patients from minority and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds and how forensic clinicians can work more effectively with these populations. As cultural differences can affect illness and behaviour, recognising these differences is important for appropriate and equitable mental health care provision within the criminal justice system. This chapter provides an outline of the unique socio-cultural contexts of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse populations and how these phenomena underpin mental health presentations and behaviours prompting criminal justice system involvement. Directions are offered for working with such populations in various psycho-legal contexts (i.e., clinical assessment, diagnoses, treatment, risk assessment), and an integrated model of cross-cultural assessment is introduced to assist assessors working in cross-cultural clinical scenarios.