Tonight’s civics special: one part sealed detention medicine, one part mystery-money discovery, and just enough official fog to make a guy reach for the onion rings. Two consequential developments landed Saturday, and neither exactly screams “relaxed confidence in the machinery of government.”
ICE got permission to force-feed a detainee in Texas
The Guardian reported that federal immigration officials obtained judicial permission to force-feed a Cuban man detained at the Montgomery ICE Processing Center near Houston after he began a hunger strike. The reported authorization covered nasal-tube feeding and, according to court orders reviewed by the paper, a surgical feeding tube placed through the abdomen without his consent.
The Department of Homeland Security told the outlet Thursday that the detainee had resumed eating and drinking and was not then being force-fed. Much of the court record is sealed, because apparently the public gets the broad outline of what the government may do to a person in custody and is expected to clap politely from the cheap seats. The reporting says the case appears to be at least the 19th ICE detention matter since January 2025 in which involuntary medical procedures were approved.
A judge wants answers on the $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund
Meanwhile, The Guardian reported that U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis ordered the Trump administration to provide discovery in litigation over the proposed $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund. The fund was tied to a settlement involving President Trump’s IRS lawsuit and drew challenges from government-accountability groups and other plaintiffs.
The public order itself, entered September 4 in the Eastern District of Virginia, says the plaintiffs’ motion to compel initial disclosures and discovery was granted in part and denied in part. That is not a final ruling on the fund, and it is not proof money was paid out. It is, however, a court telling the government that “nothing to see here” is not a discovery response. Even the nonexistent Winchester McDonald’s has better paperwork.
Sources
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/05/cuban-hunger-striker-ice-force-feeding
- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/05/judge-trump-administration-anti-weaponization-fund
- https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.596617/gov.uscourts.vaed.596617.158.0.pdf
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Featured image: US District Court Eastern Virginia Alexandria.jpg by Work of the United States Federal Government, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
