Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Migrants on Hunger Strike Are Being Force-Fed at Texas Detention Center

In the El Paso Processing Center in Texas, eleven migrants are on hunger strike against the conditions of the center, the slowness of their legal proceedings, and the verbal abuse they regularly receive from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Ioan Georg

February 1, 2019
Facebook Twitter Share

JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES

In response, ICE has begun force-feeding these detainees — driving plastic tubes through their nostrils and down their throats, leading to injury and vomiting. Once again, the U.S. government’s barbarity against migrants and people along the border zone is laid bare.

According to the BBC, an ICE spokesperson calls this practice “non-consensual feeding,” a phrase which does little to mask the fact that force-feeding is a form of torture meant to cause pain and degradation. Another four detainees are on hunger strike in Miami, Phoenix, San Diego, and San Francisco — it remains to be seen if they too will be force-fed. The brutal practices of ICE recall the force-feeding employed by the U.S. military against detainees in Guantanamo or by Israeli forces against Palestinian prisoners.

The World Medical Association has repeatedly condemned force-feeding. In a statement released in 2006 after updating its guidelines for physicians on the management of hunger strikes, the WMA states that “physicians should never be used to break hunger strikes through acts such as force-feeding,” and emphasized that “doctors working in prisons or the armed forces have exactly the same ethical obligations when treating prisoners as they do when caring for other autonomous patients.”

At least two of the detainees being force-fed are Indian men seeking asylum in the U.S., according to their lawyer. These migrants began their hunger strike around the beginning of the year. ICE has already subjected them to prolonged solitary confinement — another practice considered to by torture by the UN special rapporteur — in an attempt to break their strike.

On February 15th, the U.S. government may shut down again as Trump continues to crusade for an extended border wall. The Democrats will feign a fight to appear as the opposition, but they have shown they have no problem providing funding for ‘border security’ or being tough on immigrants. It should not be forgotten that the Obama administration deported millions of immigrants during his eight-year tenure and is responsible for the highest number of deportations in a single year.

However, in the 35-day shutdown that ended last week in part by workers’ activity, the power of the working class was demonstrated quite clearly. And if those 800,000 workers who missed two paychecks then, and will miss more with a second shutdown, were to strike they could end the shutdown almost as soon as it starts. And if they were to strike alongside protests in the detention centers and strikes across the border in the maquiladoras, there will be a real fight to open the borders and win full citizenship rights for all immigrants.

Facebook Twitter Share

Ioan Georg

Ioan is a factory worker at an optical lens plant in Queens, NY and a shop steward in IUE-CWA Local 463.

United States

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024
Former president Donald Trump standing at a podium in front of American flags.

To Stop Trump, We Need Much More Democracy, Not Less

Democrats have been trying to kick Trump off the ballot as an "insurrectionist." Liberals say we have to restrict democracy in order to save it. As socialists, we think they have it backwards: to beat the Far Right, we need a mass movement fighting for radical democracy.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 18, 2024

New Jersey Democrats Attack the Public’s Right to Government Records

The New Jersey state assembly, led by the Democratic Party, just tried to fast-track a bill that would have gutted the Open Public Records Act. This is a reminder that their party is an obstacle, not an ally, in the fight to preserve democracy.

Samuel Karlin

March 15, 2024
President Biden giving his State of the Union speech at a podium in March, 2024.

Biden’s State of the Union: Hyper-Nationalism and Eroding Legitimacy

President Biden’s hyper-nationalistic State of the Union speech focused on selling himself as a defender of democracy at home and abroad. But it’s not enough to solve his — and the whole U.S. regime’s — crisis of legitimacy.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

March 14, 2024

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

Lord Balfour Was an Imperialist Warmonger 

We should give our full solidarity to the Palestine Action comrade who defaced a portrait of Arthur Balfour at Cambridge University. But the problem for everyone who opposes the genocide against Gaza is how to massify and politically equip the movement.

Daniel Nath

March 21, 2024