AP NewsBreak: ICE force-feeding detainees on hunger strike

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

By GARANCE BURKE AND MARTHA MENDOZA
an hour ago

Federal immigration officials are force-feeding six immigrants through plastic nasal tubes during a hunger strike that’s gone on for a month inside a Texas detention facility, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 11 detainees at the El Paso Processing Center have been refusing food, some for more than 30 days. Detainees who reached the AP, along with a relative and an attorney representing hunger strikers, said nearly 30 detainees from India and Cuba have been refusing to eat, and some are now so weak they cannot stand up or talk.

Another four detainees are on hunger strikes in the agency’s Miami, Phoenix, San Diego and San Francisco areas of responsibility, said ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa on Wednesday.

The men say they stopped eating to protest verbal abuse and threats of deportation from guards. They are also upset about lengthy lock ups while awaiting legal proceedings.

-snip-


Read more: https://apnews.com/c4b201dac8bf48eba17485a5c357b810

[NanceGreggs]

1. Are we now "officially" a shithole country?

Asking for a nation.

[ananda]

2. Grrrr

This really makes me angry. It also reminds me of what guards did to early suffragists. These kinds of violations of human rights now are a feature not a bug of MF45’s government; and of course even us unwilling fascists are complicit.

[RockRaven]

3. AKA "torturing imprisoned foreign people" FOR NO REASON.

This situation is 100% avoidable -- dozens and dozens of different policy, practice, and resource allocation decisions have led to this circumstance (regardless of any decisions by any potential immigrants). And it was not avoided. The culpability lands entirely on the US government. As the party exercising the use of force, with scores of different off-ramps and what-ifs, they/we own this.

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

I weep for my country. Have for years.

[democrank]

5. I guess we flushed our concern for human rights down the same hole

we flushed the plaque that used to be at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

[SunSeeker]

6. OMG. This sounds horrific.

The conditions in these detention facilities are a crime against humanity.

[malaise]

7. Crimes against humanity

[2naSalit]

8. That does it!

I can't handle any more of this fucking shit.

[femmedem]

9. Imagine traveling all those miles to America because you want to live

then getting to America and being treated so badly that you go on hunger strike, maybe until you die.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. Good ethical puzzle: Force feed hunger-striking prisoners, or let them die of malnutrition?

It's a puzzle only if "let them go" is out of the question. That solution would never cross Kirsten Nielsen's mind.

[IronLionZion]

11. People in the developing world are amazed that America force feeds detainees

because in other countries they just let them die.

As cruel as it sounds, it's to keep them alive. Even if it's long enough so that they die somewhere else after deportation.

[shanti]

12. This is outrageous!

It reminds me of Guantanamo and their forced feedings. Sounds like the refugees are essentially prisoners here.