[wvns] U.S. Agents Forcibly Drug Deport ees
Two Los Angeles Detainees Recount Harrowing Stories
of Involuntary Sedation
By Sandra Hernandez
Los Angeles Daily Journal
http://fairimmigration.wordpress.com/2007/05/08/drugging-of-deportees-against-their-will/
LOS ANGELES - Federal immigration agents at a Los Angeles detention
center forcibly drugged immigrants while attempting to deport them.
A Senegalese man was handcuffed, put aboard an Air France flight and
injected by immigration officials, despite a court order barring his
removal.
Agents restrained a second man, pulled his pants down, forcibly
injected him and eventually drove him to Los Angeles International
Airport during a botched bid to deport him.
The Daily Journal obtained medical records confirming that both men
were involuntarily drugged, their deportation abandoned after airline
officials at Los Angeles International Airport refused to transport them.
Now, civil rights and immigrant rights' lawyers question why federal
agents and public-health workers drugged two men with no history of
mental illness or violence.
"The government's conduct is truly horrifying and blatantly illegal
because they are not allowed to forcibly sedate people who are not
mentally ill," ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said. "In fact, if
this had happened in Baghdad, it would be torture."
Arulanantham met the two men when he challenged their prolonged
detention. He is investigating their forced sedation.
The two immigrants were held at the San Pedro Processing Center when
they were drugged. The aging waterfront facility is among a handful
directly operated by the Department of Homeland Security.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman said the agency
does not "discuss individual cases of removal, and we certainly would
not discuss their medical histories."
Immigrant rights advocates, such as Kathleen Sullivan, of the Catholic
Legal Immigration Network, called the forced drugging "amazing."
"This says a huge amount about oversight of the entire detention
process. There have been any number of reports in the past few years
on various aspects on detention that are troubling," said Kennedy,
whose group works on national detention issues around the nation.
Medical experts said the druggings raise concerns of an ethical breach.
"In my opinion that is completely inappropriate," said Erik Roske, a
forensic psychiatrist and member of the American Psychiatric
Association's committee on the mentally ill in prisons.
"Every correctional standard guideline says these drugs are to be used
for medical reasons, not for restraints," Roske said.
He and others questioned why psychotropic drugs such as Haldol, used
to treat psychosis, were used as sedatives.
"They could have potentially very damaging side effects," he said.
"These aren't drugs that most general practitioners prescribe. An
emergency-room doctor may use the combination if someone comes in out
of control, or for someone in intensive care."
The forced sedation was done by public-health doctors and nurses
assigned to U.S. Immigration and Customs, according to the agency.
These health care workers belong to a special aviation program that
provides medical escorts during deportations.
But little is known about how often drugs are used during deportations
and even less about how often immigrants are drugged against their will.
Immigration officials said in a written statement that medication is
used only for the "treatment of diagnosed illnesses, e.g., heart
diseases, depression or other conditions."
The agency said detainees are never drugged to ease their removal.
"Under no circumstances are detainees medicated solely to facilitate
transport, unless a medical professional determines that they present
a danger to themselves or to others," agency officials said.
Moreover, federal officials said the agency's policy calls for
sedating only mentally ill patients, with some exceptions.
"Sedation is provided as part of the treatment for an existing
psychiatric disorder or if the detainee is severely agitated during
the flight," the agency said in a statement.
Immigration agents do not seek a court order to drug immigrants.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that a mentally ill patient or
prisoner could be medicated forcibly but only after an independent
physician reviews the case and only in those situations in which the
patient posed a danger to himself or herself or others.
Neither man had any history of mental illness, according to their
medical records.
In 2001, a federal judge turned down a request by immigration
officials to sedate a Sierra Leone man held in Texas so he could be
deported. Immigration officials claimed that the man was too violent
to travel aboard a commercial flight and that he should be medicated
against his will. The deportation case against the man was eventually
dropped, his attorney said.
Federal officials have faced similar questions in Florida and Colorado.
In 1991, immigration agents handcuffed, shackled and injected a
Nigerian man with Thorazine, a drug used to treat psychosis. His mouth
was taped shut, according to published accounts in the Washington Post.
Cheryl Little, a Miami lawyer with the Florida Immigrant Advocacy
Center, represented the Nigerian. She said that, over the past 16
years, immigrants continue to report cases of forced medication.
"We recently had a call from a woman from the Caribbean who said she
was heavily drugged before being deported," Little said.
In Colorado, attorney Sandra Saltrese said two clients were sedated
against their will and deported, including one man who spent three
days sedated during his removal to Guinea. Neither man filed a
complaint because they were outside the U.S.
Immigration officials said medical escorts comply with guidelines "for
management of agitated detainees during transport."
Federal rules, however, bar guards and other detention officials from
using medication "to subdue an uncooperative detainee for staff
convenience," detention standards say.
Civil rights lawyers have long complained the standards lack teeth
because they are not legally binding and federal officials can't be
sued for failure to comply.
Legal experts also question why immigration agents overlooked a court
order barring the deportation of one of the Los Angeles detainees.
"If someone has a stay, that means immigration officials have no
authority to deport that individual," said David Cole, a professor at
Georgetown University Law Center.
"If someone clearly states they have a stay and immigration officials
ignore it, they are clearly violating the order of the court and
violating the person's rights," Cole said.
The two immigrants forcibly sedated were released this year, but the
near-deportations haunt them.
Raymond Soeoth is a shy man. He speaks quietly when he describes the
violence and threats that pushed him and his wife to leave Indonesia
and seek asylum in Los Angeles in 1999.
And he is quieter still when recounting how he was given
anti-psychotic medication against his will on Dec. 7, 2004.
Soeoth, a Christian minister, was detained in 2004 after an
immigration judge denied him asylum.
Soeoth said he learned about his deportation from guards at the San
Pedro center, who told him he would be sent home that day. Soeoth was
put in a holding cell and told to wait.
He said he repeatedly asked guards for permission to call his wife and
lawyer, but guards ignored him.
By late afternoon, a nurse appeared and told Soeoth he would escort
him back to the capital city of Jakarta. Soeoth said the nurse asked
how he felt and offered him drugs.
"I told him I was OK," Soeoth said, adding he never spoke of wanting
to commit suicide.
Soeoth recalls the nurse and four other agents returned about an hour
later and surrounded him.
"They grabbed my arms, pulled them behind my back and pushed me down
on to a bench," Soeoth said. "I wasn't resisting. I'm not an animal.
They opened my pants. I was crying at that point. They gave me a shot.
I felt sleepy, and I think I fell asleep pretty soon after that."
Medical records confirm Soeoth was injected in the buttocks.
A nurse wrote "psych meds requested for upcoming medical escort for
[patient] threats to `kill self if deported.'"
Soeoth was given Haldol, an anti-psychotic medication, according to
the nurse's notes. He was also given Cogentin, a drug used to blunt
Haldol's powerful side effects. In addition, large doses of three
other drugs, including medication used to treat overdose cases, were
requested.
Immigration officials said Haldol and Cogentin are drugs commonly used
to sedate immigrants during deportations.
Soeoth was examined several times during his three years of detention,
and no evidence of mental illness or psychosis was ever noted,
according to records obtained by the Daily Journal.
During an exam three months before the failed deportation attempt,
nurses at the San Pedro facility described Soeoth as "frank" and
"friendly" in medical reports, adding he appeared composed and his
mind was "intact," according to signed reports.
And less than a month after the failed deportation bid, Soeoth was
again examined, and the nurse described his health as good and marked
no history of mental illness.
Like the Indonesian minister, Amadou Diouf has found the fight to stay
in the U.S. bruising.
Diouf, a muscular man who holds a degree in information science,
didn't have an attorney while he was in the San Pedro facility.
He said immigration agents often moved him from the waterside facility
to the Santa Ana jail. While he was at the Orange County jail, he
learned he was going to be deported.
He was moved from the jail to San Pedro, where he told immigration
agents he had a stay, but officials repeatedly ignored him the day he
was drugged.
"I showed it to a guard named Porter, but he told me it was old,"
Diouf said. "I asked him to call the court, but he said, `No, you are
going home.'"
Diouf also sent a copy of the court order to his deportation officer
the morning he was nearly removed, but he didn't get a reply.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Diouf a stay in July
2005, after he asked a federal court to review his case because of
ineffective assistance from counsel. A stay remains in effect.
Diouf came to the U.S. in 1995 on a student visa. He never went home.
Police arrested him for possession of marijuana, and immigration
officials moved to deport him.
Diouf married his U.S.-citizen girlfriend and hired a lawyer to help
him legalize his immigration status. The attorney did not file all the
paperwork, and in 2005 immigration agents detained him.
A federal court appointed Diouf a pro bono lawyer.
Both Diouf and Soeoth said they stepped forward because they fear it
could happen to others.
For Arulanantham, the cases are troubling because such extraordinary
measures were applied to such ordinary cases.
"There is nothing remarkable about these two individuals,"
Arulanantham said. "And that makes me think it isn't an isolated
incident. Neither one of these men was dangerous; neither of them was
mentally ill. These were pretty routine deportation cases, yet these
immigrants were illegally sedated."
===
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Response
The Daily Journal recently asked U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials about medical escorts during deportations.
Federal officials outlined the process and answered questions about
medication.
Division of Immigration Health Services Special Operation's Aviation
Medicine Program
Purpose
To provide information about the Division of Immigration Health
Services Special Operation's Aviation Medicine Program.
Background
Through an Interagency Agreement, DIHS provides or arranges health
care services for detainees in the custody of the United States
Immigration and Customs Enforcement. An integral part of this
responsibility is to provide medical escorts for detainees with
medical or psychological problems, who are deported by ground or
airplane transportation to other countries or who are transferred
within the United States to different facilities by plane or ground
transportation.
The Aviation Medicine Program provides medical professionals to
perform medical escorts for detainees with medical or psychological
problems, who are deported by ground or commercial/ chartered aircraft
to other countries or transferred domestically.
ICE leases chartered aircraft to remove large numbers of detainees
back to their countries. The majority of removals are performed on
commercial carriers. The majority of removals where there is AMP
participation are performed on commercial carriers.
Discussion
The AMP has six full-time Flight Medical Providers and uses the DIHS
medical provider pool to perform international and domestic medical
escorts. Resources for medical escorts include registered nurses,
physician assistants, nurse practitioners and physicians. Each medical
escort request is reviewed by the AMP, and as appropriate, the Mental
Health /Medical Consultant will review and recommend a care plan.
1. What is DHS/ICE's policy on medical escorts during removals?
Prescription medication is provided only by a medical professional for
the treatment of diagnosed illnesses, for example, heart disease,
depression or other conditions. Under no circumstances are detainees
medicated solely to facilitate transport, unless a medical
professional determines that they present a danger to themselves or to
others.
2. What is the policy on sedating immigrants during the deportation?
Sedation is provided as part of the treatment for an existing
psychiatric disorder or if the detainee is severely agitated during
the flight, as stated above.
3. Does DHS/ICE seek a court order to conduct a medical escort?
DIHS has not recommended that DHS/ICE pursue a court order to conduct
a medical escort.
4. If not, who approves sedation?
All medication administered to detainees during an escort is done so
according to written orders from a physician. The health care provider
serving as the escort is trained to follow DIHS clinical practice
guidelines and protocols for management of agitated detainees during
transport.
5. What type of staff is involved in the medical escorts?
DIHS uses registered nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners
and physicians to perform medical escorts. Most escorting personnel
attend Armed Forces-conducted training in San Antonio, Texas, which
prepares them for the task.
6. If the immigrant is sedated, who administers the medications?
All medications given during a medical escort are administered by a
medical provider listed in question 5.
7. Are medical psychiatric evaluations performed as part of the
medical escort?
When indicated, a psychiatric evaluation is performed.
8. What medications are used?
Commonly prescribed medications include lorazepam, haloperidol,
olanzapine and benztropine.
9. What is the list of nurses or other medical personnel in California
who are allowed to participate in medical escorts?
The Aviation Medicine Program uses the division's national resources
and is not limited to California.
10. Can detainees refuse medication or sedation during removal?
Yes. However, at times a severely agitated detainee may not respond to
less-restrictive methods to de-escalate a situation, including
physical restraints, and presents an imminent risk of danger to self
or others. The medical provider performing the escort may use sedative
medications in this circumstance.
11. Is sedation or medication used to deal with behavioral issues
during the removals?
Only if part of the treatment for an existing psychiatric disorder or
if the detainee is severely agitated during the flight, as stated in
the above answer.
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