US bans sedation of deportees

US immigration agents have been ordered to stop sedating deportees without a judge’s permission.

Immigration officials acknowledged that 56 people being deported were given psychotropic drugs during a seven-month period in 2006 and 2007 even though most had no history of mental problems.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a court action over the practice.

An internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo issued this week said that, effective immediately, agents must get a court order before administering drugs “to facilitate an alien’s removal”.

“There are no exceptions to this policy,” said the memo by John Torres, detention and removal director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

To get a sedation order from court, officials must show deportees have a history of physical resistance to being removed or are a danger to themselves.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice verified the memo’s authenticity.

“Medical sedation will only be considered as a last resort,” she said.

The ACLU sued the agency in June to stop the practice, alleging it could constitute torture and violated the Bill of Rights and laws regarding the medical treatment of detainees.

The lawsuit, which is still pending, came after a handful of immigrants in Southern California claimed to have been drugged or threatened with drugging during attempts to deport them.

“We are very happy that the government recognised that their barbaric sedation policy was wrong,” said ACLU lawyer Ahilan Arulanantham. “This has been a shameful chapter in the country’s immigration history.”

Arulanantham said the ACLU lawsuit would continue to discover more details about how sedation was used, who was drugged and to get a court ruling outlawing it in the future.

Amadou Diouf, one of two plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said he was relieved that forced sedation would cease.

Diouf, 32, alleges he was injected with psychotropic drugs in 2006 on a plane that was to return him to his native Senegal.

“It was hard for me to believe they would drug people,” said Diouf, who was ordered deported for overstaying a student visa. “It happened to me, and under the circumstances, it wasn’t necessary.”

Diouf said escorting ICE agents gave him the injection after he asked to speak to the pilot to tell him that he had a judge’s order temporarily staying his deportation.

Diouf said the pilot ordered him and the agents off the plane, and Diouf became sleepy and dizzy and had numbness in his legs that prevented him walking.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” said Diouf. “Most of the time when they drug people they wake up on the other side of the ocean.”

The US Senate was told last year that 33 of 56 deportees involuntarily given psychotropic drugs had no history of psychological problems.

They were given the medicine because of “combative behaviour”, said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.