INS wants to forcibly drug illegal immigrant so she can board plane.

Byline: T.T. Nhu and Hallye Jordan

When the INS tried to place illegal immigrant Bao Hua Dong on a plane bound for China in November, a United Airlines gate attendant refused to let her board because she was crying and hysterical.

Now the Immigration and Naturalization Service wants to try again, and an INS deportation officer has threatened to sedate Dong and place her on an upcoming flight, according to a lawsuit filed to prevent the Chinese woman from "being forcibly drugged" by the agency.

"I've never seen anything like this before," said Linda Harter, an assistant public defender in the federal public defender's office who filed the lawsuit in Sacramento.

INS officials would not discuss the Dong case in detail. An INS spokeswoman first said it's not the agency's policy to drug people to remove them …