Immigrants Allege Border Drugging

Two illegal immigrants say they were drugged against their will by U.S. officials trying to deport them, their ACLU lawyer said yesterday. The two men, one Indonesian and one Senegalese, claim to have been injected with pyschotropic drugs during deportation proceedings; neither had been diagnosed with a mental illness that would have required the medication.

A U.S. Public Health Services official says that authorities are permitted to drug deportees in extreme cases. But some immigration attorneys say that excessive—and potentially illegal—drugging is becoming a pattern. "Because the subjects are not citizens, they are fair game for abuse and mistreatment," says an Arizona immigration lawyer. (More illegal immigrant stories.)