Key facts
- Kurdish filmmaker Gabar Choli was forcibly fed by ICE for nearly eight months.
- The force-feeding occurred at the Port Isabel detention center in Texas.
- Choli was on a hunger strike for over two months protesting detention conditions.
- Human rights organizations widely condemn force-feeding as torture.
- ICE stated involuntary medical treatment is pursued only with legal authority and medical direction.
Gabar Choli, a 40-year-old Kurdish asylum seeker and filmmaker, has detailed his harrowing experience of being forcibly fed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly eight months at the Port Isabel detention center in South Texas. Choli, who came to Canada in 2007 and later sought asylum in the U.S. in 2022, began a hunger strike on March 24, 2025, to protest inhumane conditions and demand progress in his immigration case. He was arrested on February 25, 2025, after his asylum claim was denied in 2024 but he was granted protection from deportation to Iran.
Choli described the force-feeding as an excruciating and traumatizing process, involving guards wrestling him to the ground, shackling him, and medical staff forcibly inserting a feeding tube through his nose. He stated that the guards would 'shove tubes in my nose' and that he could 'feel every centimeter of it' as the 60cm tube was inserted. He suffered swollen sinuses, a damaged esophagus, stomach problems, and psychological torment, describing the experience as having 'broken me, mentally broke me.'
An investigation by The Guardian, based on court records and expert interviews, found that Choli was intermittently force-fed from late May 2025 until his deportation in January. He was not alone; he met another hunger striker, an Afghan man, who was also forcibly fed at the same facility. Human rights organizations widely condemn force-feeding as torture.
The Trump administration has not officially acknowledged force-feeding individuals in immigration jails. However, The Guardian's investigation revealed that since January 2025, the administration used court orders to subject at least 10 hunger strikers to involuntary medical procedures, including force-feeding. Sources within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later indicated that ICE received court orders for involuntary treatment for 18 hunger strikers between January 2025 and August 2026.
DHS stated that involuntary medical treatment is undertaken only pursuant to legal authority and under the direction of qualified medical professionals when an individual's medical condition presents a serious risk of death or permanent harm. Dr. Chanelle Diaz, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, reviewed Choli's case and stated that the treatment 'likely amounts to torture' and that it is difficult to capture the degree of long-term risk he was subjected to.