Mentally Disabled Detainees to Be Freed: ACLU

A civil rights group says two mentally disabled immigrants who were ruled incompetent for deportation hearings will be freed after spending up to five years in federal detention.

The American Civil Liberties Union says immigration officials will release Guillermo Gomez-Sanchez and Jose Antonio Franco-Gonzalez to their families on Wednesday from a San Diego facility.

However, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service didn't immediately confirm that report.

The men, both Mexican citizens with criminal records, were held after being ruled incompetent for deportation hearings. Gomez-Sanchez is a paranoid schizophrenic and Gonzalez has the mental age of a child.

The civil rights groups contend the men were deprived of their constitutional right to due process.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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