In June 2025, Gabar Choli, a 40-year-old Kurdish asylum seeker, was held in solitary confinement at the Port Isabel service processing center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in south Texas. Choli had been on a hunger strike for over two months, demanding better conditions for detained immigrants and either release or deportation.

Choli described how immigration detention guards forcibly fed him, sometimes twice daily, using a nasogastric tube that caused severe physical harm. He recounted, “they would take me to [a] solitary cell and I would just choke on my blood and drink the blood from inside [my throat],” describing how the feeding tube scraped the inside of his throat. On one occasion, his nose was swollen and torn from the force-feeding, and he could still taste blood from previous treatments for which he never gave consent.

The film-maker and activist for an independent Kurdistan spoke exclusively to the Guardian from Canada, saying the ordeal in the United States “broke him.”

Sources from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, told the Guardian that between January 2025 and August 4, 2026, ICE received court orders for involuntary treatment of 18 hunger strikers.

Choli was arrested on February 25, 2025, during a check-in with ICE after Donald Trump returned to the White House promising mass deportations.

Medical experts cited by the Guardian, including Dr. Parveen Parmar, noted that hunger strikes are an individual’s right if they are of sound mind, which Choli was. Another expert, Diaz, described Choli’s treatment as torture, estimating over 100 to possibly 200 nasogastric tube placements over eight months.

Choli’s case highlights ongoing controversies surrounding ICE detention practices and the treatment of hunger-striking detainees.

Sources