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ICE court order covered 18 hunger strikers

August 10, 2026

A Kurdish asylum seeker describes being force-fed in ICE detention, and DHS sources tell the Guardian a court order covered involuntary treatment of 18 hunger strikers.

The Guardian reports the account of a Kurdish asylum seeker who says force-feeding in ICE detention broke him mentally, and it carries the story's one load-bearing claim: sources at the Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, say the agency received a court order for involuntary treatment covering 18 hunger strikers between January 2025 and 4 August 2026. The Guardian's sourcing here is exclusive, which gives it first position, and UA.NEWS carries a summary crediting the Guardian's account that ICE force-fed a Kurdish asylum seeker.

The Mirror US contradicts the Guardian's central claim about the court order and the 18 hunger strikers. The sources do not reveal why the two accounts differ, and that is the story's real tension: the detainee's own testimony is vivid but singular, while the one institutional fact that would anchor it, how many hunger strikers a court authorized ICE to treat involuntarily, splits the only two outlets reporting independently. Four sources carry the story in some form, but the material reads as widely echoed rather than independently confirmed.

The confirmed record is thin: a Kurdish hunger striker has publicly described force-feeding in ICE custody, and the Guardian attributes the court-order figure to DHS sources. The figure itself remains contested, disputed by The Mirror US, and everything downstream of it is still developing.

Still developing

The court order figure of 18 hunger strikers rests on the Guardian's DHS sources and is contradicted by The Mirror US, with no third account resolving the split. The scope and timing of ICE's involuntary treatment practice remain unconfirmed beyond the detainee's own testimony.

How settled the reporting is

Reported 0% · Contested 36% · Developing 64%

Sources