U.S. ends feeding of hunger strikers

The U.S. government has stopped force-feeding a group of men on a hunger strike inside an El Paso immigration detention center, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

The reversal came Thursday as public pressure was mounting on immigration officials to halt the practice, which involves feeding detainees through nasal tubes against their will. Last week, the United Nations human rights office said the force-feeding of Indian hunger strikers at the facility could violate the U.N. Convention Against Torture.

On Wednesday, a U.S. district judge said the government had to stop force-feeding two of the detained Indian immigrants, but warned that if their health started to decline he would consider ordering force-feeding again, their attorney said. On Thursday, all force-feeding at the detention center near the El Paso airport had stopped, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Leticia Zamarripa.

“This is a win for us,” said Louis Lopez, who is representing Malkeet Singh and Jasvir Singh in the case heard Wednesday in El Paso. Both men are Punjabi Sikhs in their early 20s. “They have a First Amendment right to protest.”

Detained immigrants have sporadically staged hunger strikes around the country for years, protesting conditions they face while seeking asylum. Immigration officials said currently 12 detainees are refusing food, including nine from India and three from Cuba. Force-feeding, which began under court order earlier this year, has not previously been reported, and advocates involved said they weren’t aware it had happened before.

In a federal courtroom Wednesday in El Paso, U.S. District Judge David Guaderrama heard from Dr. Michelle Iglesias about how men detained in the El Paso facility are restrained and have feeding tubes pushed through their noses. The judge asked specifically whether they had some other way they could protest, and sought details about the Singhs’ physical condition.