Key facts
- Gabar Choli, a Kurdish activist, described his eight-month force-feeding experience in US immigration detention.
- He was force-fed by ICE medical staff at the Port Isabel federal detention center in Texas.
- Choli was on a hunger strike to protest conditions and his denied asylum application.
- ICE obtained court orders for involuntary medical treatment, including force-feeding, for Choli and 18 other hunger strikers.
- Choli reported physical injuries and psychological distress from the process, calling it torture.
Gabar Choli, a Kurdish filmmaker and activist now living in Canada, has spoken out about his experience of being force-fed for eight months while on hunger strike in US immigration detention. Choli described the coercive treatment, which he characterized as torture, as having "mentally broke me." He was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after his asylum application was denied and was force-fed at the Port Isabel federal detention center in south Texas from late May 2025 until his deportation in January 2026.
Choli resorted to a hunger strike to protest conditions at the facility and to seek resolution for his immigration case. He recounted how detention guards restrained him while ICE medical staff inserted a feeding tube through his nose and pumped nutritional liquid into his stomach. He stated he was protesting for humane treatment but felt ICE was determined to break him.
Investigations have revealed that the second Trump administration planned to subject at least 10 hunger strikers to involuntary medical procedures. More recently, DHS sources indicated that between January 2025 and August 4, 2026, ICE obtained court orders for involuntary medical treatment for 18 hunger strikers. DHS maintains that ICE provides such treatment only to prevent imminent life-threatening harm or death.
Court records confirm Choli was subjected to force-feeding, including requests for physical examinations, laboratory testing, hydration, and the use of restraints for monitoring and administering nutrients and medication via nasogastric tube. Choli wrote to the federal judge overseeing his case, stating he was not suicidal but using the hunger strike as his only option to protest abuse.
DHS and ICE argued in court that force-feeding Choli was necessary for his health and that his prolonged hunger strike threatened the security of the detention center, accusing him of attempting to manipulate the immigration system. Choli reported that during initial force-feeding sessions, a nurse shoved the tube so hard it tore his nose from the inside, leading him to choke on his own blood. Many of his court records are sealed, limiting full corroboration. He did not have legal representation during the eight-month period, and the presiding federal judge, Rolando Olvera, denied his request for legal assistance, extending the force-feeding order multiple times at ICE's request.
Dr. Chanelle Diaz, an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University, reviewed Choli's case and stated that such treatment constitutes torture.