Gabar Choli, a 40-year-old Kurdish film-maker, activist, and asylum seeker, has spoken out for the first time about being intermittently force-fed for nearly eight months while held in United States immigration detention. Arrested during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement check-in on February 25, 2025, after his asylum application failed, Choli began a hunger strike in California to protest conditions and demand release or deportation before being transferred to Texas.
Kurdish Film-Maker Recounts Force-Feeding Ordeal in ICE Detention
According to an investigation, Choli was held in a solitary confinement medical cell inside the Port Isabel service processing center in Los Fresnos, south Texas. From late May 2025 until his deportation in January, he was subjected to involuntary force-feedings often twice a day.
Describing the routine, Choli recounted how detention center guards would rush into his cell, wrestle him to the concrete floor, shackle his wrists and ankles, and drag him to the facility infirmary. There, multiple guards pinned him while medical staff forcibly inserted a feeding tube through his nose and down his throat to pump nutritional liquid into his stomach.
Two guards would hold my feet; two hold my hands; one hold my head – and they would shove tubes in my nose,
Choli said. You have 60cm of tube going through you and you just feel every centimeter of it.
He added that the ordeal severely impacted his mental and physical well-being. It just broke me, mentally broke me,
Choli said. It came to a point that I decided to write my body an apology letter.
Wider Use of Court Orders for Involuntary Medical Treatment
International human rights groups widely consider force-feeding to be a form of torture. While the Trump administration has not officially acknowledged force-feeding anyone in immigration jails, Department of Homeland Security sources stated that between January 2025 and August 4, 2026, ICE obtained court orders for involuntary medical treatment for 18 hunger strikers.
Court records reviewed during the investigation indicate that involuntary medical treatment
served as an umbrella term encompassing the option of force-feeding. In Choli’s case, much of the court documentation remained sealed, and he did not have legal representation.
Department of Homeland Security Response
An unnamed DHS spokesperson defended the agency’s actions via email, stating that ICE respects an individual’s right to refuse medical treatment where appropriate. However, the spokesperson added that when an individual’s medical condition presents a serious risk of death or permanent harm, or when other compelling legal or operational interests are implicated, ICE may seek judicial authorization for appropriate medical interventions consistent with applicable law.
DHS sources similarly maintained that such treatment is provided only to prevent imminent life-threatening harm or death.
During his detention, Choli encountered at least one other hunger striker—an Afghan man who was also forcibly fed within the same Texas facility. Choli was ultimately deported to Canada in January, where he shared his account publicly for the first time.
