Federal immigration officials are force-feeding six immigrants through plastic nasal tubes during a hunger strike that's gone on for a month inside a Texas detention facility, The Associated Press has learned.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says 11 detainees at the El Paso Processing Center have been refusing food, some for more than 30 days.

Detainees who reached the AP, along with a relative and an attorney representing hunger strikers, said nearly 30 detainees from India and Cuba have been refusing to eat, and some are now so weak they can't 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, ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said Wednesday.

The men say they stopped eating to protest verbal abuse and threats of deportation from guards. They are also upset about lengthy lockups 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.

People protested the separation of children from their parents in front of the El Paso Processing Center, an immigration detention facility, at the Mexican border last June. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

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 nose bleeds 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."

Protestors chanted, "No al muro!" (No to the wall!), during a march denouncing the border wall and calling for immigration reform in El Paso on Jan. 26, 2019. (Paul Ratje / Agence France-Presse)

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 near El Paso.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to queries about how often detainees are being force-fed.

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 his throat. It can be very painful.

The El Paso detention facility, 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.

ICE classifies a detainee as a hunger striker after he refuses nine consecutive meals. Federal courts have not conclusively decided whether a judge must issue an order before ICE force-feeds an immigration detainee, so rules vary by district and type of court, and sometimes orders are filed secretly.

The Associated Press

Information compiled by Breaking News producer Loyd Brumfield