INS Request Put on Hold


Updated 4:34 PM ET May 11, 2001
By KRISTEN HAYS, Associated Press Writer

HOUSTON (AP) - Immigration officials asked for a court order Friday that
would allow them to sedate an African man for deportation to Gambia after he
violently resisted earlier attempts to put him aboard a plane.

But a federal judge postponed ruling on the request by the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service until an appeals court can determine whether Musa
Fofana should be deported at all.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner put the process on hold because of
questions about whether Fofana would face torture if returned to his native
country in Africa and whether he should have had an appointed guardian when
he was ordered deported in August. Fofana has claimed he was 17 at the time.


Hittner ordered that Fofana remain in U.S. custody in the meantime.

Fofana claims that he is a native of Sierra Leone but obtained a fraudulent
1999 Gambian visa to escape the civil war in his country, said his attorney,
Okon J. Usoro. Fofana was afraid he would be drafted and forced to fight in
Sierra Leone's civil war, Usoro said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Howard Rose, however, said records show Fofana is
from Gambia, not Sierra Leone.

Fofana was caught in Houston last year, and in August an immigration judge
said he had until Oct. 2 of last year to voluntarily return to Gambia. Since
he did not leave, authorities planned to deport him on Oct. 24.

But "he resisted transportation to the airport with force and the effort to
execute the removal order was abandoned," the government said in court
papers.

Rose said authorities do not want to handcuff or otherwise restrain Fofana
because he would have to be released for a bathroom break on a long flight
and he could get violent.

"The air crews on commercial airplanes won't board somebody who is acting
wild," Rose said. "The authority of the airline captain is like law on that
point."

The U.S. Marshals Service flies some deported immigrants to their native
countries in handcuffs aboard noncommercial flights. But Rose said that may
not be an option in Fofana's case.

"We don't have a lot of deportation orders to Gambia," he said.


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