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CONTACT: media@aclu.org
ACLU of Southern California and Law Firm Sue for Damages for Two Men Forcibly Sedated
LOS ANGELES — The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern
California and law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP filed a federal class
action lawsuit today to stop the government’s policy of forcibly drugging people
facing deportation. The suit was brought on behalf of two immigrants who were
drugged against their will by
U.S. officials
and seeks an immediate end to the practice as well as damages for the two
men.
“Our Constitution does not allow the government to treat immigrants
like animals. Injecting people who are not mentally ill with psychotropic drugs
is illegal, immoral, and medically inappropriate,” said ACLU of Southern
California Staff Attorney Ahilan Arulanantham.
Federal officials have
publicly admitted to forcibly injecting immigrants with powerful drugs in order
to render them less “agitated” for deportation. Yet detention standards from the
Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) state that detainees may not
be forcibly medicated if they are not mentally ill, simply for “staff
convenience.” Neither of the plaintiffs had any history of mental
illness.
Raymond Soeoth, an Indonesian citizen and ordained Christian
minister who came to the United
States in 1999, is seeking political asylum. In
December 2004, immigration officials planning to deport him from the San Pedro
Detention Center brought him to a cell, held him down, and injected him with
Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug that can be lethal to some patients. The drug was
prescribed by a physician working for ICE who had not examined Soeoth.
Amadou Diouf, a native of
Senegal who
entered the U.S.
in 1996 to study at the California
State
University at Northridge, is married
to a U.S.
citizen. Despite a federal court order barring his deportation, immigration
officials scheduled him for deportation in February 2006. On board anairplane
bound for
Senegal at
Los Angeles
International
Airport, officials pushed him to the
ground and injected him with an unidentified psychotropic drug after he
attempted to speak with the captain of the flight.
Both Diouf and Soeoth
were released in February after approximately two years in an immigration jail,
as the result of a separate ACLU of Southern California lawsuit challenging
their prolonged detention. They remain in the
U.S.
The
lawsuit names the ICE personnel who conducted the druggings, as well as
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other senior
officials. The ACLUSC’s action also includes a Freedom of Information Act
request to reveal how often such forcible druggings occur and under what
circumstances.