“They have tubes that have been shoved through their noses … It’s extremely painful, and it’s against their will,” Ruby Kaur said of the recent action taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to feed detainees on a hunger strike.
Last month, nine individuals refused to eat in protest of how they were being treated at an ICE detention facility in El Paso, Texas. Over the weekend ICE confirmed that they are now feeding the detainees without their consent after the detainees missed nine consecutive meals.
A similar case happened in May of 2017, where a Ukrainian man refused to eat for nearly three weeks. American officials have also faced this issue with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, who went on a hunger strike during Ramadan. In all of these cases, judges ruled that their health and safety must be upheld, even if it requires force-feeding.
Naturally, the media jumped on the ICE story, citing the fact that detainees have the right to refuse food and water. Human Rights Watch condemned the judges’ decision, stating that force-feeding is “inherently cruel, inhuman, and degrading.” Esquire even declared force-feeding as an act of torture.
But is it as horrible as Kaur, attorney for one of the detainees, makes it out to be? This isn’t shoving food down people’s throats. A nasogastric tube is a narrow tube passed through the nose into the stomach, delivering liquid nutrition or medication. For many people with failing health, a NG tube is the only way to maintain a healthy and steady weight.
According to the Scientific American, “many thousands of people” use a NG tube, the same method being used to feed prisoners and detainees who refuse to eat. While irritating and certainly uncomfortable, being “force-fed” through a NG tube is not “torture.”
Amanda Singer, a young woman who struggles with anorexia and bulimia, uses tube feeding for all her meals. She said that while unpleasant, it isn’t painful.
“It was never enjoyable, but it got easier,” Singer said in an interview with Scientific American. Others have found the tube to feel “a little strange, but not uncomfortable.”
While it isn’t nice, feeding individuals in ICE custody through a NG tube is simply the only way to keep the detainees from dying.
Indeed, detainees have already lost worrying amounts of weight. According to Kaur, her client has lost 50 pounds in the month he has been on his hunger strike.
Dr. Marc Stern, assistant professor of health services at the University of Washington, told the AP that losing that much weight can have lasting health impacts. “You can become demented and lose coordination, and some of it is reversible, some of it isn’t,” he said. Dr. Stern also said that refusing to eat for multiple days can cause permanent cognitive damage and even death, noting, “If you are very weak, you could very simply get up to do something and fall and crack your skull.”
So, is it torture to allow such suffering, or to forcibly intercede in order to prevent it?
