LOS ANGELES, June 19 (Xinhua) -- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the federal government for sedating deportees against their will.

    "Our constitution does not allow the government to treat immigrants like animals," ACLU lawyer Ahilan Arulanantham said in a statement.

    The federal suit followed allegations aired in May by the civil liberties group, which contends two foreign nationals were injected with medications to make them less agitated when they were deported.

    "Injecting people who are not mentally ill with psychotropic drugs is illegal, immoral, and medically inappropriate," said the statement.

    The group alleges that Raymond Soeoth, a Christian minister who is an Indonesian citizen, was held down and injected with the anti-psychotic drug Haldol in December 2004 by immigration officials planning to deport him from a detention center in San Pedro.

    A doctor working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement allegedly prescribed the drug without examining Soeoth.

    Another drugged immigrant was Amadou Diouf, a Senegalese native married to a U.S. citizen. He was being deported contrary to a court order when, while at Los Angeles International Airport on an airplane bound for Senegal, officials pushed him to the ground and injected him with an unidentified psychotropic drug after he tried to talk to the flight's captain, the ACLU alleged.

    Both men were released in February as a result of a separate ACLU lawsuit. They each spent about two years in immigration custody, according to the group.

    In addition to seeking a court order barring the alleged druggings, the ACLU's complaint includes a Freedom of Information Act request seeking information on how often forcible druggings occur and under what circumstances.