An internal ICE Health Service Corps document has confirmed that the Trump administration subjected at least one immigration detainee on hunger strike to forcible medical treatment, marking the first documented instance of such intervention since Donald Trump began his second term. The document, titled "FY26 Appropriations Requirement Hunger Strike – Q1," was published online in February 2026 and reviewed by The Guardian (The Guardian).

The IHSC document discloses that an unnamed patient who began hunger strikes between October and December 2025 "was subject to force feeding, hydration, or forced urinary catheterization, or involuntary blood draws." The document does not specify which of those measures were applied in this individual case. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Guardian's questions about what sort of forced treatment was administered to the detainee (The Guardian).

As of February 11, 2026, the same IHSC document recorded seven patients on hunger strike. The report also forecasted a total budget of $168,928.01 for fiscal year 2026 based on costs from the prior year, with $4,504.75 allocated specifically for external medical care of hunger strike patients (The Guardian).

The ICE 2025 and 2026 National Detention Standards both require use of an IHSC "Hunger Strike Form" to record intake and output in the medical record for detainees on hunger strike, and both require documentation of any plan for forced medical treatment. The DHS Office of Inspector General had already flagged hunger strike activity in ICE detention in a June 2025 report (OIG-25-24) on an unannounced inspection of ICE's Buffalo facility, which referenced IHSC medical services and detainees declaring a hunger strike (DHS OIG).

The forced treatment revelation comes against a backdrop of escalating hunger strike activity across the detention system. At least 300 detainees began a hunger and labor strike at the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey from May to June 2026. Advocates said those detainees ended their strike after facing retaliation. Separately, attorneys with the Immigrant Defenders Law Center reported that hunger strikers at the Adelanto detention center in California were zip-tied, threatened with teargas, placed in solitary confinement, or transferred to other ICE facilities. Sarah Houston, managing attorney at ImmDef, said ICE officials denied that her clients at Adelanto who staged hunger strikes were forgoing food (The Guardian).

Trump officials have repeatedly denied that detainees are rejecting food to protest unsanitary conditions and medical neglect in detention facilities. The government's position, as relayed through ICE officials at Adelanto and through broader administration statements, is that the hunger strikes are not occurring as advocates describe them. The IHSC document's own data, however, records both the existence of hunger strikes and the use of forced medical intervention (The Guardian).

Eunice Cho, an immigrant rights attorney, called the revelation shocking. Cho co-authored a 2021 ACLU report documenting medical complications from forced treatment for hunger strikers in ICE detention, providing a documented record of the health risks associated with these procedures. The World Medical Association's Declaration of Malta has long held that forcible feeding is never ethically acceptable, a principle that has shaped medical debate over the practice but does not carry binding legal force on U.S. immigration authorities (The Guardian).

The IHSC document's publication is notable in itself. Internal appropriations justifications from ICE's medical wing are not routinely made public, and this document's appearance online provides the first official confirmation that forced treatment has been applied to a hunger striker during Trump's second term. The level of specificity in the document, including the enumeration of possible interventions (force feeding, hydration, forced urinary catheterization, involuntary blood draws), gives advocates and legal observers a concrete basis to scrutinize the administration's detention medical practices that was not available from public statements alone.

The broader context here is one of widening friction between detained immigrants exercising the only leverage available to them, refusal of food, and an administration that has both escalated enforcement and dismissed the protests' stated grievances. The Delaney Hall and Adelanto episodes illustrate the range of responses detainees have faced: retaliation allegations at one facility, physical restraint and solitary confinement at another. The IHSC document now confirms that medical coercion has been deployed as well. With DHS declining to answer questions about the specific interventions used, and with the documented budget figures suggesting ICE anticipates continued hunger strike activity through fiscal year 2026, the gap between official denial and internal documentation is likely to sharpen legal and advocacy scrutiny in the months ahead.