Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 2 - January 12, 2008
1. ICE Says It Won't Sedate Deportees
2. Tennessee: Raids, Firings at Electrolux
Immigration News Briefs is a supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com for info. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is archived at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.
*1. ICE SAYS IT WON'T SEDATE DEPORTEES
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an internal memo on Jan. 9 setting a new policy, effective immediately, on the sedation of detainees. The agency "may only involuntarily sedate an alien to facilitate removal where the Government has obtained a court order..." reads the memo from ICE detention and removal director John Torres. "There are no exceptions to this policy. Emergency or exigent circumstances are not grounds for departures from this policy." 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 spokesperson Virginia Kice said in a written statement on Jan. 11 that the directive clarifies procedures implemented last year. "Medical sedation will only be considered as a last resort," she said. [Los Angeles Times 1/12/08, AP 1/12/08] In a policy change last June, ICE allowed forced sedation without a court order only in emergencies. That came after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California made public in May that ICE had drugged at least two foreign nationals against their will during failed deportation attempts.
The ACLU of Southern California and the law firm Munger, Tolles and Olson sued the government last June 19 to stop the practice of sedation and demand compensation for two plaintiffs who were drugged. Indonesian immigrant Raymond Soeoth was appealing his political asylum case when he was injected with the antipsychotic drug Haldol in December 2004 at the Terminal Island detention facility in San Pedro, California. Senegalese immigrant Amadou Lamine Diouf, who was also appealing his case, was injected with an unidentified psychotropic drug in February 2006 while on a commercial plane at Los Angeles International Airport. [LAT 1/12/08; ACLU News Releases 5/8/07, 6/19/07, 1/7/08] Diouf said escorting ICE agents injected him after he asked to speak with the plane's pilot to tell him that he had a judge's order temporarily staying his deportation. [AP 1/12/08]
Both Diouf and Soeoth were released in February 2007 as the result of a lawsuit filed in November 2006 by the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic, challenging their prolonged detention and that of two other detainees at Terminal Island. Shortly after that lawsuit was filed, the district court ordered the government to provide the men with bond hearings. By February 2007, all four were released. The government appealed the district court's decision in three of the four cases, including those of Soeoth and Diouf. Arguments were made on Jan. 7 to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. [ACLU News Release 1/7/08]
ICE Assistant Secretary Julie Myers acknowledged in September 2007 during Senate testimony that 56 deportees were administered psychotropic drugs between Oct. 1, 2006, and April 30, 2007. Medications commonly used are lorazepam, haloperidol, olanzapine and benztropine. Of the 56 detainees who ICE says were drugged, 33 had no history of psychological problems; they were sedated because of alleged "combative behavior, with the imminent risk of danger to others and/or self," according to Myers. "I am aware of, and deeply concerned about reports that past practices may not have conformed to ICE detention standards," Myers said. [LAT 1/12/08] Before the policy change last June, ICE rules still only allowed detainees to be sedated in emergencies if a medical professional determined that "they present a danger to themselves or to others." [ACLU News Release 5/8/07]
"We're very pleased that the government has finally agreed to stop forcibly drugging people without court orders," ACLU attorney Ahilan Arulanantham said on Jan. 11. The ACLU plans to continue its lawsuit seeking compensation for Soeoth and Diouf. In addition, Arulanantham said he wants the government to release more information about how long the sedation policy existed and how many people were involuntarily medicated. [LAT 1/12/08]
*2. TENNESSEE: RAIDS, FIRINGS AT ELECTROLUX
Between Dec. 12 and 20, ICE arrested 31 people in the area of Springfield, Tennessee. The roundup came after Nashville television station NewsChannel 5 aired a Dec. 5 story charging Electrolux Home Products with hiring undocumented immigrants at its factory in Springfield, which employs about 3,500 people and produces electric and gas stoves.
Within a few days after the television report, the company began reviewing the paperwork of existing employees at the plant. As many as 800 workers lost or walked away from Electrolux jobs, said Tommy Vallejos, executive director of HOPE, a Tennessee immigrant advocacy group. "There are people who are so afraid, they have not collected their final paycheck," Vallejos said. According to a NewsChannel5 source, Electrolux dismissed 120 employees on Dec. 13 and another 52 on Dec. 14. An Electrolux spokesperson said the company has begun to use the Department of Homeland Security's E-verify system (formerly known as Basic Pilot) to check the authenticity of documents provided by new hires.
On Dec. 12, ICE arrested two people accused of selling identification to immigrants who used it to get jobs at Electrolux. The two have been charged by a grand jury of the US District Court. Also on Dec. 12, ICE arrested 14 suspected undocumented immigrants, New Orleans-based ICE spokesperson Temple Black confirmed. On Dec. 19, ICE arrested four immigrant workers at the Electrolux facility; by the end of the day on Dec. 20, ICE had arrested 11 more immigrants at homes and apartments in and around Springfield. The raids spread fear through the area, with some people estimating that as many as 1,000 residents have since fled the city or gone into hiding. [The Gannett and Robertson County Times (Springfield, TN) 1/9/08, Robertson County Times 12/19/07; NewsChannel5.com 12/15/07]
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ORDER "The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers," a new book by the editors of Immigration News Briefs and Weekly News Update on the Americas, out now on Monthly Review Press: for details see publisher website: http://monthlyreview.org/politicsofimmigration.htm
book website: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.org
authors' blog: http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com
or email the authors at thepoliticsofimmigration@gmail.com
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