ICE given permission to force-feed Cuban hunger striker with gastric tube
Federal immigration officials quietly received permission from a judge in recent weeks to force-feed a detained Cuban hunger striker inside a Texas detention center, including with the use of a rare, nonconsensual surgical procedure, court records reveal.
The man is likely the 19th hunger striker in Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) detention where the agency has had an application approved to conduct "involuntary medical procedures" since January 2025. The rising number of cases under the second Trump administration has alarmed advocates amid wide-ranging accusations of mistreatment inside facilities nationwide.
Court orders from the southern district of Texas federal court seen by the Guardian suggest ICE followed through with force-feeding via a nasal tube on the Cuban man in August, since agency officials successfully requested this week that the court order be extended. He is currently detained at the Montgomery ICE processing center, a privately-run detention facility near Houston.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, said on Thursday evening the man had "resumed eating and drinking again" and was not being force-fed. The DHS did not answer whether the man had broken his hunger strike this week after the latest court order, or how many times he had been force-fed prior.
The new order had given ICE permission to operate on him to fit a surgical feeding tube without his consent.
The Guardian is not naming the man because efforts to contact him have been unsuccessful. Like in all force-feeding cases, the majority of his court records are sealed, concealing many details from the public.
The secretive practice of force-feeding inside detention centers has been widely condemned by human rights organizations as torture. Involuntary medical procedures in response to hunger strikes in detention are often painful and traumatizing .
Related: 'Shoved the tube so hard it tore my nose': Kurdish film-maker recounts 'inhumane' ICE force-feeding
During a prolonged hunger strike, ICE will request permission from a federal judge to conduct force-feeding, forced hydration and other measures.
Typically, after a judge approves the request, detention center guards hold down a hunger striker while medical staff forcibly insert a tube through the person's nose and down their throat, and pump nutritional liquid into their stomach.
But in this latest case in Texas, ICE also received permission to force-feed the Cuban hunger striker through a "percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy" tube insertion. This is a surgery in which medical staff make an incision in a person's abdomen, insert a tube that remains in place indefinitely until it is surgically removed again and pump liquid directly into the stomach. This procedure has not been previously identified in other force-feeding cases reviewed by the Guardian.
"The cruelty of the extreme tactics at ICE's disposal to end lawful protest, including forcibly cutting into a protester's body to insert a tube in their stomach, underscores the horrors happening outside our view in ICE detention centers," said Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas. "ICE's brutal use of involuntary medical procedures on hunger strikers demonstrates how degrading conditions have gotten in these hidden places, which is often exactly what hunger strikers are protesting in the first place."
Last month, the Guardian published a series of stories about the extent of ICE's force-feeding practices under the second Trump administration, with the agency getting the green light to perform involuntary medical procedures in 18 hunger strike cases – and the latest being the 19th.
"The high number of verified court orders since January 2025 raises serious concern," said Eunice Cho, an immigrant and civil rights attorney who has extensively documented forced treatment on hunger strikers in ICE detention.
Cho added that the high number "suggests several possibilities, none of which are positive", including that conditions are so bad that more people are hunger striking in protest, and that officials "are more frequently failing to attempt to resolve the issue in a less confrontational and dangerous manner, instead resorting to forced medical intervention".
The Cuban man was arrested by ICE on 22 July and was declared a hunger striker three days later, court records show. The Montgomery facilityholding him is run by the private prison company GEO Group.
A GEO Group spokesperson referred all questions to ICE. The US attorney's office in the southern district of Texas, which is representing ICE in the latest court proceedings, did not respond to a request for comment.
An ICE official and a doctor at the facility requested permission to force-feed the Cuban hunger striker in August, filings show.
On 19 August, federal judge Andrew Hanen gave permission for ICE to force-feed the hunger striker. And on 1 September, ICE requested the judge extend his order.
This Wednesday, Hanen extended the order, which is set to expire in mid-September. It includes the option for ICE touse the surgical tube insertion.
Like in many cases reviewed by the Guardian, the Cuban hunger striker does not have any current legal representation.
"The fact that this person lacks legal representation in a process where the government seeks to subject him to an invasive, involuntary medical procedure performed without consent is a tragedy, and a clear failure of our justice system," Cho said. "The secretive nature of these cases, and the opacity of the legal process by which the government brings these motions, should concern us all."
According to a DHS spokesperson, the Cuban hunger striker entered the US unlawfully in 1980 and was ordered deported in 2004. The DHS claims he was previously convicted of "aggravated assault with a weapon, aggravated battery, drug possession, and carrying a concealed firearm". The spokesperson added that he "received due process and will remain in ICE custody until removed from the United States".
The DHS also said facilities distribute proper food, hygiene, phone and other basic services, and that "during hunger strikes, ICE continues to provide three meals a day, delivered to the detained alien's room".
The Trump administration had previously refused to acknowledge the force-feeding of hunger strikers in ICE detention, until later into the Guardian's investigation confirming the practice.
