U.S. immigration agency will no longer sedate deportees without court order

U.S. immigration agents must not sedate deportees without a judge's permission, according to a policy change issued this week.

Immigration officials have acknowledged that 56 deportees 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 federal lawsuit over the practice in June.

An internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo issued Wednesday and obtained Friday by The Associated Press 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 to stop the practice, alleging it could constitute torture and violates the Bill of Rights and federal laws regarding the medical treatment of detainees.

The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status and is still pending, came after a handful of immigrants in Southern California claimed to have been drugged or threatened with drugging while the government attempted to deport them.

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

Arulanantham said the ACLU would go forward with the lawsuit to learn 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 late Friday he was relieved that forced sedation would cease. Diouf, 32, alleges he was injected with psychotropic drugs in 2006 in 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 with the plane's pilot to tell him that he had a judge's order temporarily staying his deportation.

Senate testimony last year revealed that 33 of 56 deportees involuntarily given psychotropic drugs had no history of psychological problems. They were given the medicine because of "combative behavior," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.