Guardian investigation reveals ICE force-fed Kurdish asylum seeker Gabar Choli for eight months at Texas detention center

The Guardian reported August 10, 2026, in a two-part exclusive investigation, that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement force-fed Gabar Choli, a 40-year-old Kurdish filmmaker and independence activist, for approximately eight months while he was on hunger strike in ICE detention. Choli was arrested during a February 25, 2025 ICE check-in in California after his asylum claim failed, began a hunger strike protesting detention conditions, and was transferred to the Port Isabel detention center in Los Fresnos, Texas, where ICE force-fed him roughly twice a day from around June 2025 until his deportation to Canada in January 2026. He described guards restraining him -- two holding his feet, two his hands, one his head -- while ICE medical staff inserted a roughly 60-centimeter tube through his nose and pumped in nutritional liquid, then returned him to a solitary confinement medical cell.

Federal court records from the Southern District of Texas, reviewed by the Guardian, show DHS and ICE obtained an emergency court order authorizing the force-feeding and related procedures -- including involuntary intravenous hydration, blood draws, and catheterization -- arguing Choli's hunger strike threatened his health and "the security and good order" of the facility, and accusing him of trying to "manipulate the immigration system." U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera denied Choli's request for legal assistance and extended the force-feeding order multiple times at ICE's request. Choli said one nurse "shoved the tube so hard" it tore his nose, leaving him to "choke on my blood," and court records document resulting injuries including esophagus damage and swollen sinuses. Dr. Chanelle Diaz, a Columbia University medical school professor who has reviewed other ICE force-feeding cases, told the Guardian: "That is just not medical care, that is torture."

DHS did not answer specific questions about Choli's case but told the Guardian that ICE provides involuntary medical treatment "only to prevent imminent life-threatening harm or death" and undertakes it "only pursuant to legal authority and under the direction of qualified medical professionals." The Guardian's broader investigation found DHS obtained court orders for involuntary medical treatment against at least 18 hunger strikers in ICE detention between January 2025 and August 2026, an escalation from the at least 10 cases the paper had reported the previous week.