Thread: Authorities want to sedate man during deportation

Authorities want to sedate man during deportation
By ANABELLE GARAY
The Associated Press

DALLAS -- Federal immigration authorities have asked a judge to give them permission to sedate a Lufkin restaurant owner before putting him on an airplane for deportation to Albania.

In August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tried to put Rrustem Neza, a 32-year-old asylum seeker, on a plane at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, but he resisted and shouted so much that airline representatives would not allow him to board. According to court papers dated Oct. 1, a physician from the U.S. Public Health Service would administer the sedative, and a medical worker would accompany Neza during the flight.

"Unless this Court enjoins Neza from any further unlawful resistance to his removal and authorizes ICE, through PHS, to use medical means ... it will be impossible to execute the final order of removal," the court document states.

Deportees have been medicated before, but it's rare, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said. "We ask for this option only when the alien in question may present a danger to himself or to others," he said Monday.

Dallas attorney John Wheat Gibson, who represents Neza, said Monday that he plans to oppose the sedation request.

According to Gibson, Neza told a crowd in the Albanian city of Tropoje the names of the men he said had killed Azem Hajdari, who had organized a student movement against the Communist Party. Albanian police pursued Neza, his brothers and their cousins while they tried to flee.

His cousins were fatally shot while on the run. Neza eventually made it to the United States, settling with his family in Lufkin. Neza's 6-year-old son was born in this country, and he and his brother Xhemal Neza own restaurants in East Texas. "Mr. Neza will get off the airplane in Albania too drugged to run from the killers who will be waiting," Gibson wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

After ICE agents tried to deport Neza in August, they reported that Neza grabbed a cellphone from an officer's hand after being told he could no longer use it to call his attorney and family. Neza then began shouting "I am not a terrorist" and asked an airline ticket agent for help while saying he was being illegally deported. He later began shouting "I am not a criminal!" when the deportation officer grabbed him by the arm, according to court documents.

http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_new ... 61650.html

Sloppy Journalism Alert (SJA):

Re:

. Neza eventually made it to the United States,

Oh, I see, he was a direction-less feather floating randomly on the winds, right? What the he$$ does 'eventually made it to the United States' really mean, anyway? Either he entered legally with a visa entry of some sort, or he entered illegally without one. So which is it?

[b]Nov. 1, 2007, 10:12PM
E. Texas representative attempts to help Albanian immigrant
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5266822.html[/b


DALLAS — An East Texas congressman says the government's treatment of an Albanian immigrant is "intolerable" and "callous."

So Rep. Louis Gohmert, a conservative Republican from Tyler who seems an unlikely ally of Rrustem Neza, has written a private bill that would stall Neza's deportation until 2009.

Gohmert, who sits on the House judiciary subcommittee on immigration, spoke to President Bush about the case this week, a staff aide said in Thursday's online edition of The Dallas Morning News.

"I am a strong believer in following the laws regarding immigration," Gohmert said in a written statement. "However, we have laws to allow people to remain here based on asylum and the need to protect their lives."

Immigration authorities want a court to let them sedate Neza, a Lufkin restaurant owner, before putting him on an airplane for deportation because they believe he will again fight attempts to remove him.

Neza fears he will be killed back in his homeland because of what he knows about a political assassination of a democracy leader in Albania, a European country of 3.6 million that fought off communism in the late 1990s.

Two of his brothers have won asylum, his attorney, John Wheat Gibson, said.

A government official has said that Neza came into the U.S. using a false Italian passport. Immigration and Customs Enforcement couldn't deport him in August because he was terrified and did not calm down.

Neza physically resisted and shouted while at the terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

ICE alleges Neza grabbed a cell phone from the deportation officer's hand after being told he could no longer use it to call his attorney and family. Neza then began shouting "I am not a terrorist" and asked an airline ticket agent for help while saying he was being illegally deported. He later began shouting "I am not a criminal!" when the deportation officer grabbed him by the arm, according to court documents.

Immigration authorities have had deportees medicated before, but an ICE spokesman has said it's rarely done.

Though Neza was denied political asylum, there are two pending appeals. Gohmert's bill would allow time for Neza to receive a full rehearing of his case for asylum.

"My main concern is to prevent the deportation," said Gibson, his attorney. "The drugging is just one more mean thing they are doing to this guy to deliver him into the hands of the assassins. My ultimate goal is to keep him out of hands of the assassins."


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