RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Immigration Judges’ Perceptionsof Telephonic and In-Person Forensic Mental Health Evaluations JF Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online JO J Am Acad Psychiatry Law FD American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law SP 240 OP 251 DO 10.29158/JAAPL.210075-21 VO 50 IS 2 A1 Aliza S. Green A1 Samuel G. Ruchman A1 Beselot Birhanu A1 Stephanie Wu A1 Craig L. Katz A1 Elizabeth K. Singer A1 Kim A. Baranowski YR 2022 UL http://jaapl.org/content/50/2/240.abstract AB Clinicians affiliated with medical human rights programs throughout the United States perform forensic evaluations of asylum seekers. Much of the best practice literature reflects the perspectives of clinicians and attorneys, rather than the viewpoints of immigration judges who incorporate forensic reports into their decision-making. The purpose of this study was to assess former immigration judges’ perspectives on forensic mental health evaluations of asylum seekers. We examined the factors that immigration judges use to assess the affidavits resulting from mental health evaluations and explored their attitudes toward telehealth evaluations. We conducted semistructured interviews in April and May 2020 with nine former judges and systematically analyzed them using consensual qualitative research methodology. Our findings were grouped in five domains: general preferences for affidavits; roles of affidavits in current legal climate; appraisal and comparison of sample affidavits; attitudes toward telephonic evaluations; and recommendations for telephonic evaluations. Forensic evaluators should consider the practice recommendations of judges, both for telephonic and in-person evaluations, which can bolster the usefulness of their evaluations in the adjudication process. To our knowledge, this is the first published study to incorporate immigration judges’ perceptions of forensic mental health evaluations, and the first to assess judges’ attitudes toward telephonic evaluations.