‘Shoved tube so hard it tore my nose’: Kurdish film-maker’s ICE force-feeding ordeal

A Kurdish film-maker has revealed the brutal details of being force-fed by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly eight months while on hunger strike, describing the experience as 'inhumane' and 'torture.'

Gabar Choli, a 40-year-old asylum seeker from Kurdistan, was subjected to involuntary medical treatment at the Port Isabel federal detention center in south Texas from late May 2025 until his deportation to Canada in January 2026. His hunger strike, which lasted over two months, was a protest against detention conditions and to push for a resolution to his immigration case.

Choli recounted being physically restrained by guards twice a day while a feeding tube was forcibly inserted through his nose and down his esophagus. 'Two guards would hold my feet; two hold my hands; one hold my head—and they would shove tubes in my nose,' he told The Guardian. 'It’s not easy to be wrestled to the ground twice a day by men that are stronger than you. And you just take it. You have 60cm of tube going through you and you just feel every centimeter of it.' He said the process left his nose swollen, his throat injured, and a lingering taste of blood.

His ordeal was part of a broader pattern under the second Trump administration, which obtained court orders for involuntary medical treatment for at least 18 hunger strikers in ICE detention between January 2025 and August 2026. ICE maintains that such measures are only used to prevent imminent life-threatening harm or death.

While detained, Choli met another hunger striker, an Afghan man, who was also being force-fed. 'I was respectful. I just told them I am protesting for humane treatment, nothing else,' Choli said. 'But they were determined to break me.' He described the experience as mentally devastating, saying it 'broke me' to the point of writing an apology letter to his own body.

Choli’s account sheds light on the hidden practices within ICE detention facilities, where hunger strikers have increasingly faced coercive medical interventions. His deportation to Canada in January 2026 ended his detention but not the psychological scars of the ordeal.