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Federal immigration officials are force-feeding six immigrants through plastic nasal tubes during a hunger strike that has gone on for a month inside a Texas detention facility, it emerged on Thursday.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) says 11 detainees at the El Paso processing center have been refusing food, some for more than 30 days.

Detainees who spoke out, along with a relative and an attorney representing hunger strikers, said nearly 30 detainees from India and Cuba have been refusing to eat, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

Some are now so weak they cannot stand up or talk.

Another four detainees are on hunger strikes in the agency’s Miami, Phoenix, San Diego and San Francisco areas of responsibility, an Ice spokeswoman, Leticia Zamarripa, acknowledged on Wednesday.

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The men say they stopped eating to protest against verbal abuse and threats of deportation from guards. They are also upset about lengthy lock-ups while awaiting legal proceedings.

In mid-January, two weeks after they stopped eating, a federal judge authorized force-feeding of some El Paso detainees, Zamarripa said. She did not immediately address the detainees’ allegations of abuse but did say the El Paso processing center would follow the federal standards for care.

“It is very alarming, it is very concerning,” Liz Martinez, director of advocacy and strategic communications at Freedom for Immigrants, a group that opposes immigration detention, told the Guardian.

Freedom for Immigrants first learned about the force-feedings through an affiliate group that has visitation rights at the El Paso facility.

“When people go on a hunger strike, it’s their last resort,” said Martinez. “By starving themselves, these individuals really want the public to know the suffering they are facing in Ice detention and draw attention to it, especially because Ice is a place where they don’t really want information to be released.”

Ice officials say they closely monitor the food and water intake of detainees identified as being on a hunger strike to protect their health and safety.

The men with nasal tubes are having persistent nosebleeds, and are vomiting several times a day, said Amrit Singh, whose two nephews from the Indian state of Punjab have been on hunger strike for about a month.

“They are not well. Their bodies are really weak, they can’t talk and they have been hospitalized, back and forth,” said Singh, from California. “They want to know why they are still in the jail and want to get their rights and wake up the government immigration system.”

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Singh’s nephews are both seeking asylum. Court records show they pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in September after illegally walking across the border from Mexico near El Paso.

There have been high-profile hunger strikes around the country at immigration detention centers in the past, and non-consensual feeding and hydration has been authorized by judges in court orders.

Media reports and government statements do not indicate immigration detainees actually underwent involuntary feeding in recent years, opting to end their hunger strikes when faced with nasal intubation. Ice did not immediately respond to queries about how often they are force-feeding detainees.

To force-feed someone, medical experts typically wind a tube tightly around their finger to make it bend easily, and put lubricant on the tip, before shoving it into a patient’s nose. The patient has to swallow sips of water while the tube is pushed down their throat. It can be very painful.

The El Paso detention facility, located on a busy street near the airport, is highly guarded and surrounded by chain-link fence.

Ruby Kaur, a Michigan-based attorney representing one of the hunger strikers, said her client had been force-fed and put on an IV after more than three weeks without eating or drinking water.

“They go on hunger strike, and they are put into solitary confinement and then the Ice officers kind of psychologically torture them, telling the asylum seekers they will send them back to Punjab,” Kaur said.

Eiorjys Rodríguez Calderín, who on a call from the facility described himself as a Cuban dissident, said conditions in Cuba forced him and other detainees to seek safety in the US, and they risk persecution if they are deported.

“They are restraining people and forcing them to get tubes put in their noses,” said Rodríguez, adding that he had passed his “credible fear” interview and sought to be released on parole. “They put people in solitary, as punishment.”

“Credible fear” interviews are conducted by immigration authorities as an initial screening for asylum requests.

Ice classifies a detainee as a hunger striker after they refuse nine consecutive meals.

Fernando Garcia, executive director for The Border Network for Human Rights, told the Guardian: “This exposes the systematic problems of ICE’s detention facilities and how our immigration officials treat asylum seekers and migrants in this country.

We have denounced the physical and psychological abuses at detention centers which are now the cause behind these hunger strikes.

“This is a desperate scream for help and we must demand a resolution to these cases immediately.”

Additional reporting: Edwin Delgado in El Paso

The Associated Press contributed to this report