Homeland Security officials during the Trump administration quietly attempted to subject at least 10 hunger strikers in US immigrant detention to involuntary medical procedures, including force-feeding, according to a Guardian investigation.

Court records reviewed by the Guardian show that these procedures involved force-feeding, intravenous forced hydration, and involuntary blood draws. In 2025 and 2026, officials definitely performed these procedures on at least three detained immigrants and likely subjected two more to forced treatment, which human rights groups widely consider torture. Five others ended their hunger strikes as force-feeding loomed.

One Kurdish asylum seeker detained at the privately-run Port Isabel service processing center in Los Fresnos, Texas, was force-fed for nearly eight months, from May 2025 until his deportation, based on filings in the southern district of Texas federal court. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appears to have begun these forced practices three days before Trump's 2025 inauguration for a second term and continued thereafter.

Two other hunger strikers—one at the Northwest ICE processing center in Washington state and another at the Montgomery processing center near Houston, Texas—were likely subjected to forced medical procedures, according to filings in federal courts in Washington and Texas.

Eunice Cho, an immigrant rights attorney who has extensively documented forced treatment cases on hunger strikers in ICE detention, said, “The Trump administration’s choice to seek court orders to force-feed people in ICE detention who have engaged in hunger strikes is another stark example of the brutality it has unleashed against immigrants.”

The government has not publicly acknowledged the use of involuntary medical procedures on hunger-striking detainees, even as ICE detention numbers rise nationwide.

Sources

Guardian US: ‘Stark example of brutality’: Trump’s ICE used court orders in plan to force-feed at least 10 hunger strikers in detention by José Olivares, published August 3, 2026.