Thread: L.A. suit claims immigrants were forcibly drugged for deport

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/06 ... _20_07.txt

LOS ANGELES -- Two immigrants who claim they were drugged against their will while being prepared for deportation sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The suit, filed Tuesday, asks a federal court to bar authorities from forcibly administering psychotropic drugs to deportees going on commercial flights unless they have been seen by a physician who determines it is necessary.

Raymond Soeoth, 38, of Indonesia, was given the drugs Haldol and Cogentin in December 2004 while at a Los Angeles detention facility, according to medical records.


Amadou Diouf, 31, of Senegal, contends he was forcibly sedated while on a plane in February 2006.

Neither deportation was carried out. Both currently are fighting deportation.

The suit said the men had no history of mental illness and "exhibited no behavior that indicated they would be mentally unstable during deportation" and neither was examined by a doctor before being injected.

The suit seeks unspecified damages and class-action status.

"There is a real danger that the government's illegal policy has been applied not just in these two cases, but in lots of other cases, and it will keep happening to others," Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, told the Daily Journal of Los Angeles.

The suit names the chiefs of Homeland Security, the U.S. Public Health Service's Division of Immigration Health Services and various employees of the two departments.

"We can't talk about pending litigation," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency under the Homeland Security department.

However, "deportation officers do not make medical determinations regarding the detainees," she said Wednesday.

Physicians with the Division of Immigration Health Services decide whether to give medications "as a last resort based on medical need and only after other efforts are made to address concerns regarding the alien's health or safety to himself or others," Kice said.

Oh great ... we need some more of these to stick around to sue us don't we?

Why does an illegal alien have access to US Courts?

Deny them access to US Courts! How in the world can they have access to our Court System and our money when they can't even be in our country legally?

Dismiss their lawsuits on lack of jurisdiction and get them out of here.

Who can Americans sue when an illegal immigrant injures them? Or kills a loved one?

Follow the money!!!!!