Judge Hanen Authorizes Surgical PEG-Tube Force-Feeding of Cuban Hunger Striker at GEO's Montgomery Facility

On August 19, 2026, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen authorized ICE to surgically implant a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tube — a PEG, placed through an incision in the abdomen directly into the stomach — in a Cuban national on hunger strike at the Montgomery ICE Processing Center in Conroe, Texas, operated under contract by GEO Group. The order was requested by an ICE official and a facility doctor.

The sequence: the man entered the United States unlawfully in 1980 and was ordered deported in 2004. ICE arrested him on July 22, 2026, twenty-two years after that order. He was formally declared a hunger striker on July 25, three days into custody. ICE force-fed him through a nasal tube in August under the existing authorization, then applied on September 1 to extend it. Hanen granted the extension in early September; it runs to mid-September.

The escalation from nasogastric to surgical feeding is what marks this case. A nasal tube is reversible and requires no incision; a PEG is a surgical procedure performed on a person who has refused it, authorized in an emergency proceeding in which the detainee reportedly had no legal representation. Legal observers noted that PEG authorization had not appeared in previously reviewed ICE detention records — this appears to be the point at which the practice crossed from restraint into surgery.

It is not isolated. Reporting places this as approximately the nineteenth ICE detainee with an approved application for involuntary medical procedures since January 2025, with applications approved in eighteen hunger-strike cases by August 2026 alone. Those totals come from advocacy tracking rather than a published federal list, and are recorded here as reported figures rather than adopted counts; the verified particulars are the dated ones in this entry.

DHS has said the man resumed eating and drinking, while declining to answer further questions. The detainee is not named in the available reporting, and is not named here.