Fried Nuts

What do the actions of Homeland Security deportation agents and Mama's Place Bar and Grill in Elderon, Wisconsin have in common? At Mama's Place, for the 9th year in a row on Saturday, you could get a steaming hot "all-you-can-eat" buffet of fried goat, lamb and bull testicles for $5. Read on for the similarities.

From NPR

In Los Angeles, the unusual case of two immigrants whose deportations were botched by U.S. immigration officials has allowed a rare glimpse into internal proceedings within the Department of Homeland Security.

The men say that U.S. immigration officials drugged them in order to ease their removal from the country — but airline officials ultimately put a stop to the deportations.

Both immigrants are back in Los Angeles, appealing their deportations. And they've now obtained government medical records that seem to confirm their accounts.

One of the men, Raymond Soeoth, is a Christian minister from Indonesia who came to the United States in 1999 to flee religious persecution. But on Dec. 7, 2004, immigration agents told him he was going to be deported.

Soeoth says that an agent asked him if he needed medication to relax him for the trip. He replied that he did not. But a few hours later, says Soeoth, several agents came into his cell. One of them, he says, was a medic. He was holding a syringe.

"Two officers grabbed my legs, two officers grabbed my hands. Then they opened my pants. And then I said, 'Why are you guys doing this to me?' and I was crying and crying, and I said 'Why? I'm not animal.'"

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement medical records, Soeth was injected with Haldol, a very powerful sedative.

In Soeoth's case, his government medical records say a physician prescribed Haldol because Soeoth threatened to kill himself if he was deported.

Soeoth denies that he said this; there is no documentation in his medical records of any other suicide threats, or any history of mental illness.

Immigration agents told Senegalese immigrant Amadou Diouf that he was going to be deported. A federal court had given Diouf a stay of deportation, but agents brought him to the airport anyway.

On the plane, Diouf asked to speak to the pilot. He says this angered his government-appointed medical escort, who tried to force Diouf into the plane's lavatory.

"He took the bag out, and he took the syringe," Diouf said. "At that point I knew that, you know, they're going to sedate me. Next thing you know, I refused to get inside the lavatory anyway, and I was pushed to the back and wrestled to the ground."

Diouf says agents injected him with a drug, and then they were kicked off the plane. He says his legs were so numb that on the way out, he fell down the plane's stairs onto the tarmac. Diouf's medical records confirm that he was given medication. It does not list the type of medication.

The American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing both Soeoth and Diouf says his organization is investigating whether to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.

I don't know about you, but this makes me sick to my stomach, as I suspect fried testicles would.