ICE Force-Fed Hunger Striker for Eight Months, Guardian Investigation Reveals

Gabar Choli’s hunger strike was supposed to be a protest. Instead, it became a nightmare of physical torture and psychological trauma that he says “broke him” mentally.

The 40-year-old Kurdish filmmaker and activist was detained by ICE at the Port Isabel facility in south Texas in 2025 after crossing the border to seek asylum in the United States. When he refused to voluntarily accept deportation to Iran, where he faced persecution for his Kurdish independence activism, he stopped eating as a last resort. For nearly eight months, ICE responded not with dialogue or case review, but with force-feeding procedures that left him with a damaged esophagus, swollen sinuses, and deep psychological wounds.

“Two guards would hold my feet; two hold my hands; one hold my head, and they would shove tubes in my nose,” Choli recalled in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. “You just feel every centimeter of it.”

A Pattern of Force-Feeding in Detention

Choli was not alone. A Guardian investigation found that ICE obtained court orders to force-feed at least 18 hunger strikers between January 2025 and August 2026. These procedures, conducted without the detainees’ consent and often without legal representation, involve physical restraint, nasal intubation, and forced nutritional intake. Medical experts have widely condemned the practice as torture.

The Trump administration has never officially acknowledged the practice, though DHS eventually confirmed to the Guardian that such court orders exist. An ICE spokesperson defended the procedures as necessary “when an individual’s medical condition presents a serious risk of death or permanent harm,” claiming they are conducted “under the direction of qualified medical professionals.”

But Choli’s case suggests a darker reality. Despite a social worker’s assessment that he was “operating under his own free will,” federal Judge Rolando Olvera approved force-feeding without ever hearing from Choli or his attorney. That’s because Choli didn’t have an attorney. The government never provided one.

The Erosion of Medical Ethics

Dr. Chanelle Diaz from Columbia University’s medical center, who reviewed Choli’s limited court records, was blunt: “This likely amounts to torture.” She emphasized the long-term health risks posed by repeated forced intubation and nutritional pumping.

The World Health Organization explicitly recognizes hunger strikes as a legitimate form of protest when undertaken by individuals of sound mind. Patient autonomy is a cornerstone of medical ethics. Yet in immigration detention facilities, these principles seem to vanish.

“Immigration detention is civil, it is not necessary,” Dr. Diaz noted. “Those individuals could be released. That should be the default, not force-feeding.”

Choli’s case exposes a troubling pattern: federal judges routinely approve ICE’s force-feeding requests without hearing from the hunger strikers themselves or their lawyers. When detainees lack legal representation, they have no voice in proceedings that violate their bodily autonomy.

Beyond Physical Pain

The psychological toll may be the cruelest part. After each force-feeding session, Choli was returned to a brightly lit solitary confinement cell where he would “choke on blood and drink the blood from inside” his throat as it scraped from the tube. This happened nearly twice daily for months.

Rebecca Sharpless, founding director of the University of Miami’s immigration clinic, has represented ICE hunger strikers. She argues that legal representation fundamentally changes outcomes: “It makes a big difference when people understand that there are people who are fighting for them, both in terms of their legal case but also their right to make choices about their body.”

Choli’s story raises an urgent question: in a civil immigration system designed to process violations of administrative law rather than punish crimes, why are detention facilities employing techniques that rival criminal punishment? Why is the government force-feeding people whose only transgression is seeking safety?

Choli was eventually deported to Iraq in January after his eight-month ordeal. He now speaks from Canada about the experience that fundamentally changed him. The real question is whether his testimony will change anything about how America treats those who protest their detention with the only tool remaining: refusing to eat.

Source: The Guardian