ICE Halts Force-Feeding of Detained Migrants on Hunger Strike After Facing Widespread Backlash

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Guards prepare to escort an immigrant detainee from his ‘segregation cell’ back into the general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility, in Adelanto, California, on November 15, 2013. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency... John Moore/Getty

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency officials have halted a controversial practice that has seen nine migrants on a hunger strike force-fed through nasal tubes for weeks at a detention center in El Paso, Texas, according to reports.

A spokesperson for ICE confirmed to NPR in a statement on Thursday that "no hunger strikers housed in El Paso are currently being fed pursuant to court orders at this time."

The agency said there were 12 individuals participating in a hunger strike at the facility, including nine men who have been refusing to eat since late December of last year. Nine of the participants are citizens of India and three others are from Cuba, ICE said.

ICE's apparent decision to stop force-feeding detainees at the El Paso facility comes following significant backlash after reports first revealed that the agency had been engaging in the controversial practice as recently as last month, with detainees describing being tied down to beds before being force-fed liquid through tubes pushed through their noses.

Last week, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that force-feeding hunger strikers could be a violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

And in a dispatch published earlier this month, Human Rights Watch condemned the practice as "cruel, inhuman and degrading," noting that "medical ethics and human rights norms generally prohibit the force-feeding of detainees who are competent and capable of rational judgment as to the consequences of refusing food."

"Hunger striking is a desperate expressive act," Human Rights Watch said. "In immigration detention, it can be a response to the irrationality of prolonged and needless detention," it said, calling upon ICE to "immediately stop the cruel, inhuman, and degrading process of force-feeding any detainees who have made a rational decision to stop eating as a form of protest."

It is unclear how long ICE's pause on the practice will continue.

The revelation that it had been halted at all was made during an open hearing before U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama on Wednesday, according to NPR and The Texas Monthly.

The news outlet reported that Louis Lopez, an attorney representing detainees affected by the practice, let it "slip out" that "now the tubes are out," before being stopped by Guaderrama, who said: "You're not supposed to say that. That's the closed portion," according to the Monthly.

ICE has not immediately responded to a request for comment for this article.

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About the writer


Chantal Da Silva is Chief Correspondent at Newsweek, with a focus on immigration and human rights. She is a Canadian-British journalist whose work ... Read more

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