Force-feed Immigrants On Hunger Strike

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A group of at least nine immigrants in detention centers were forcibly fed by the nasal route after going on hunger strike in mid-January.

This was confirmed this Friday by multiple sources reporting that the group is mainly made up of men from Cuba and India. Most of them have been held for weeks in an El Paso, Texas, detention center and were force-fed through a nasal insertion tube due to their condition after days without trying food.

According to the lawyers of at least two of the protesters, the forced feeding caused the nosebleeds of those affected.

According to the Associated Press, immigrants complain about what they describe as "verbal abuse" by the guards who guard the center and according to The New York Times some of them were placed in isolation when they began their peaceful protest.

A relative of one of the detainees informed AP that the group is made up of approximately 30 people. However, spokesmen for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) have only confirmed the existence of 11 strikers in their custody.

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Leticia Zamarripa, a spokeswoman for the agency, said that in addition to the detainees in Texas, there are 4 more people who have refused food in detention centers in Miami, Phoenix, San Diego and San Francisco, and that the agency is carefully monitoring their intake of water and its state of health.

Some of the strikers are seeking asylum in the country and claim to be victims of persecution in their places of origin.

According to The New York Times since 2015, at least 1,396 cases of people who went on hunger strike having been found in detention centers in the country have been documented. Many have protested abuse and unhealthy situations within such places.