Washington Post Series Examines Sedation of Detained Immigrants Without Medical Reason

The Washington Post as part of a four-day series, titled "Careless Detention," examined access to health care for immigrants to the U.S. who are in immigration detention centers. The Post on Wednesday in the fourth article in the series examined how "hundreds of foreigners" have been injected with "dangerous psychotropic drugs against their will to keep them sedated during the trip back to their home country." The Post investigation found more than 250 cases in which the "government has, without medical reason, given drugs meant to treat serious psychiatric disorders to people it has shipped out of the U.S. since 2003," when the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency took control of immigration detainment centers in the U.S.

Such "chemical restraint of detainees, unless there is a medical justification, is a violation of some international human rights codes" and is "banned in several countries," according to the Post. In addition, the Post found the "government has routinely ignored its own rules, which allow deportees to be sedated only if they have a mental illness requiring the drugs, or if they are so aggressive that they imperil themselves or people around them."

Federal officials have "seldom acknowledged publicly" the practice, and when they have, they have "understated it, portraying sedation as rare and 'an act of last resort'"; however, "[n]either is true," according to the Post. The Post found that during fiscal year 2007, 53 people were sedated without medical justification. Of those people, 48 had no documented history of violence but previously had eluded deportation. The figures do not include two detainees given sedatives for behavioral reasons before they were sent home on commercial flights, according to the Post (Goldstein/Priest, Washington Post, 5/14).

Post staff writers Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest, who conducted the investigation, will discuss the series in a washingtonpost.com online chat on Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET (washingtonpost.com, 5/14).

Lawmaker To Introduce Bill To Protect Detained Immigrants
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) is planning to introduce legislation that would require ICE to improve standards and health care for detained immigrants who are being deported or seeking asylum, CongressDaily reports. A Lieberman aide said the senator is introducing the bill because Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has not improved treatment in the detainment system, as he said he would after the Senate's comprehensive immigration bill failed to become law last year. "Every year we detain in harsh prison conditions tens of thousands of people fleeing oppression and poverty and seeking a better life here," Lieberman said in a statement, adding, "While it is being determined whether or not they are entitled to live in the U.S., we must ensure that they are detained and housed in safe and humane facilities where they receive appropriate medical care and by funding secure alternatives to detention where possible."

An ICE spokesperson said the agency would review the legislation but added that ICE has improved quality of care for detainees and oversight of the centers since last summer. According to the spokesperson, since the agency was established in 2003, 71 of 1.5 million immigrants died while in custody (Strohm, CongressDaily, 5/13).

NPR's "Tell Me More" on Tuesday included a discussion with Elizabeth Llorente, a reporter who has written about medical care for detained immigrants for the Bergen Record, about the issue (Martin, "Tell Me More," NPR, 5/13).