On Wednesday, medical ethicist Art Caplan joined Boston Public Radio to criticize Immigrations and Customs Enforcement over its handling of detainees on hunger strike.
10 men detained by ICE have been refusing meals at Louisiana's LaSalle Detention Facility since November. A December court order from a Louisiana federal judge ruled that detainees on strike could be force-fed and force-hydrated against their will, a decision Caplan described as allowing for “one of the great... moral scandals going on right now."
“They’re getting food and water through tubes in their nose,” he explained. “The whole thing is morally outrageous.”
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"I know we have all these fights about whether we should send people back or let them apply to come in,” Caplan said. “But remember — they’re not convicted of anything, they’re not prisoners. They went on a hunger strike as a political statement, and ICE... has said, ‘Well, you’re not doing that and we’re going to force feed you.’”
Similar strikes have taken place in facilities like the El Paso Processing Center, where one doctor, testified to a Texas judge that a man on hunger strikehad received "the worst medical care I have seen in my 10 years of practice.”
“You have a fundamental right not to be given treatment that you don’t want,” Caplan said. "I’m going to say it again, they haven’t been convicted of anything."
As to whether any lawyers might come to the defense of the striking detainees, Caplan had this to asked, "Where is Alan Dershowitz when he’s not busy?”
Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Chair, and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.
