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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh and José Olivares

Revealed: Trump administration forced treatment on hunger striker in ICE detention

A person's silhouette is visible through a window above barbed wire fencing
A detainee gestures near a window during ongoing protests against ICE outside the Delaney Hall detention center, in Newark, New Jersey, on 5 June 2026. Photograph: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

The Trump administration subjected at least one person undertaking a hunger strike in immigrant detention to forcible medical treatment – engaging in medical practice that healthcare associations and international human rights groups have described as torture.

A document from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) health service agency, reviewed by the Guardian, confirms for the first time that the administration has used forced treatment on a hunger striker since Donald Trump began his second term. The document, published online in February by the ICE Health Service Corps (IHSC), discloses that an unnamed patient who began hunger strikes between October and December of last year and “was subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws”.

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