When Government Power Meets the Body, the Water Tap and the Press — Is America Better Yet?

By Roberto Zapatero
Is America Better Yet?

Three stories crossed my desk this weekend.

One involves a man in immigration detention who stopped eating and a federal court order allowing the government to feed him against his will — including authorization for a tube that could be placed directly into his stomach through the abdomen.

Another involves families in Jackson, Mississippi, who say government officials exposed them to lead-contaminated drinking water and misled them about its safety. A federal appeals court has now ruled that the Constitution does not provide the particular substantive-due-process rights they tried to enforce through that lawsuit.

And the third involves three journalists at Stars and Stripes, the newspaper generations of American service members have relied upon, who say the Pentagon is firing them after they spoke publicly about censorship and editorial independence.

Different people. Different courts. Different constitutional questions.

But there is a question running through all three:

When government itself has enormous power over you, what happens when the protection you thought existed cannot be enforced?

A man in ICE detention — and permission for a feeding tube through his abdomen

The first story requires an important qualification.

Much of the underlying federal court record is sealed. The most detailed public reporting I located comes from The Guardian, which reviewed court records that are not fully available to the public.

According to that reporting, federal immigration authorities obtained permission from U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen to involuntarily feed an unnamed Cuban man being held by ICE at the privately operated Montgomery ICE Processing Center in Texas.

The facility is operated by GEO Group.

The court authorization reportedly includes use of a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy, or PEG tube — a procedure in which a tube is inserted through the abdomen directly into the stomach.

The Guardian reports this is the first documented ICE hunger-strike case in which that procedure has been authorized.

The man was arrested by ICE on July 22 and classified as being on hunger strike three days later, according to the reporting. Judge Hanen approved involuntary feeding on August 19 and later extended the authorization into September.

DHS subsequently told The Guardian that the man had resumed eating and was not then being force-fed.

That distinction matters.

A court authorized the procedure. That does not establish that the surgical procedure was actually performed.

Those are two very different facts, and until the record establishes otherwise, we should not tell you that ICE surgically inserted the tube.

The Guardian's investigation has identified at least 19 cases since January 2025 in which ICE obtained authorization for involuntary medical treatment of hunger strikers.

The unnamed Cuban man reportedly has no current legal representation.

Much of his case remains sealed.

Think about that for a moment.

The government detains a person.

The person refuses food.

The government asks another branch of government for permission to intervene physically.

And the person whose body is at the center of the proceeding may have nobody representing him when that decision is made.

There may be legitimate medical reasons to prevent a detained person from dying.

There are also profound medical-ethics, due-process and bodily-autonomy questions surrounding treatment performed over a competent person's objection.

The sealed record prevents the public from independently answering some of the most important questions.

Was the man found competent to refuse treatment? What alternatives were attempted? Was independent medical advice obtained? What exactly did Judge Hanen authorize? What procedures were actually carried out? And what opportunity did the detained man have to oppose the government's request?

Those records matter.

Then there is the water

On September 4, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, decided Sterling v. City of Jackson.

This one we can read ourselves.

Residents of Jackson, Mississippi, alleged that city acts and failures contributed to lead contamination in their municipal drinking water and that officials told residents the water was safe despite allegedly knowing it likely was not.

Because the lawsuit was dismissed at the pleading stage, these were allegations, not findings that the defendants committed those acts.

The Fifth Circuit majority said the plaintiffs were asserting two substantive-due-process rights:

1. a right not to be exposed to water contaminated because of acts or omissions by public officials; and
2. a right to truthful information from officials about contaminants in municipally supplied drinking water.

The court rejected both.

The majority wrote:

“It is undisputed that the Constitution does not guarantee clean water.”

That sentence is striking.

But accuracy requires us to explain what the court did not decide.

It did not declare that governments are free to poison drinking water.

It did not eliminate federal or state drinking-water laws.

It did not rule that residents have no possible legal remedy when contaminated water harms them.

The majority said the plaintiffs' alleged injuries were not constitutionally cognizable under the substantive-due-process theory they brought through 42 U.S.C. §1983.

It pointed instead to other possible remedies, including tort claims, legislation, regulation and the political process.

That distinction matters enormously.

So does the dissent.

Judge Catharina Haynes, joined in relevant part by several other judges, argued that the allegations should have been allowed to move forward.

She compared them in important respects to the Flint water crisis and criticized the Fifth Circuit's treatment of the “state-created danger” doctrine.

The disagreement therefore isn't simply over whether clean water is important.

Everybody knows the answer to that.

The legal fight is over something harder:

When government action allegedly creates or worsens a danger, when does the Constitution itself provide a remedy?

For the Jackson plaintiffs, the Fifth Circuit majority's answer was: not under the substantive-due-process theories presented here.

And then there are the journalists

Now consider Stars and Stripes.

The Pentagon moved in August to terminate Publisher Max D. Lederer Jr., Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte.

The separation notices charged insubordination.

For Slavin and Korte, the dispute centered in part on a CBS interview in which they discussed the importance of Stars and Stripes maintaining editorial independence.

Slavin said censorship would cross a red line.

Korte said she worked for Stars and Stripes, not the Pentagon.

Lederer was also targeted after refusing to fire them and after speaking publicly about concerns over the Pentagon's direction for the newspaper.

All three sued.

They allege that the firings violated their speech rights and retaliated against them for defending the publication's editorial independence.

Those allegations remain contested.

On September 4, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden refused their request for preliminary relief that would have stopped the Pentagon from moving forward with the terminations while the lawsuit continues.

McFadden concluded that Slavin and Korte were unlikely, at this stage, to establish that their CBS comments were protected speech made as private citizens rather than speech made as government employees carrying out their official responsibilities.

Again, the distinction matters.

The journalists did not lose the entire lawsuit.

The judge denied preliminary relief.

The underlying case continues.

McFadden himself noted that discovery could strengthen their case.

But there is a larger reason this deserves attention.

Stars and Stripes occupies an unusual place inside the federal government.

It is owned and partly funded by the Defense Department, yet federal rules and longstanding policy have emphasized its editorial independence.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon also removed the publication's ombudsman — an office created to help protect that independence.

Now its publisher, editor and a reporter are fighting their terminations.

Service members have an obvious stake in what happens next.

If the newspaper covering their military can report freely only until its reporting or public comments displease the officials above it, what does “editorial independence” actually mean?

That question has not yet been finally resolved by the court.

Three cases, one uncomfortable question

I don't want to pretend these cases establish something they don't.

The Fifth Circuit water decision concerns substantive due process.

The ICE case involves detention, medical treatment, bodily autonomy and government responsibility for someone in its custody.

The Stars and Stripes litigation concerns government-employee speech and the unusual protections surrounding a military newspaper.

They are legally distinct.

But look at them from the position of the individual rather than the institution.

A detained man faces a government-authorized intrusion into his body.

Families alleging government-created exposure to contaminated water are told that their allegations do not establish the constitutional rights they invoked.

Journalists charged with informing American service members are fighting termination after publicly defending editorial independence.

In every case, government has enormous power.

And in every case, the person on the other side has to determine not merely whether something seems wrong, but whether there is a law, constitutional provision, lawyer, court and remedy capable of stopping it.

Those aren't the same thing.

A right we believe should exist and a right a court will actually enforce can be very different things.

That is why these cases are worth watching.

What we still need to know

In the ICE case, much of the public record remains sealed. We need the complete force-feeding order, competency findings, medical declarations, any hearing transcript, any representative appointed for the detained man, and confirmation of which procedures — if any — were actually performed.

In Sterling, the next question is whether the plaintiffs seek further review and what happens to any remaining nonconstitutional claims.

And at Stars and Stripes, discovery may tell us whether the stated reasons for the personnel actions match the documentary record — emails, directives, personnel records and communications surrounding the disputed journalism.

Those records will tell us more than anyone's political interpretation of these cases.

We'll keep following them.

Watch Is America Better Yet for updates. Subscribe free to get new reporting by email.

I write for you.

— Roberto

https://www.isamericabetteryet.org

Sources

• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Sterling v. City of Jackson, No. 24-60370, decided Sept. 4, 2026.
• The Guardian, Sept. 5, 2026, reporting based on federal court records concerning ICE authorization to involuntarily feed a Cuban hunger striker.
• Stars and Stripes, Sept. 4, 2026, reporting on Judge Trevor McFadden's denial of preliminary relief sought by Max D. Lederer Jr., Erik Slavin and Lara Korte.
• Stars and Stripes, Aug. 27, 2026, reporting on the journalists' lawsuit against the Pentagon.
• Aaron Parnas, The Parnas Perspective, Sept. 5, 2026 — used as an initial reporting lead; consequential claims independently checked against court records or additional reporting where available.

Living Record: This article will be updated if additional ICE court records become public, the detainee's actual medical treatment is established, the Jackson plaintiffs seek further review, or the Stars and Stripes litigation produces additional evidence.

AI assisted with research organization, source comparison, drafting and editing. AI output is not evidence. Material factual claims were checked against cited records and reporting before publication.

© 2026 Is America Better Yet?