ICE Violence, Eating Disorders, and Harm Reduction in the Face of Authoritarianism

What is the relationship between ICE violence and eating disorders? In this blog post, indigenous activist Gloria Lucas discusses how state violence contributes to disordered eating in undocumented and indigenous communities. And providers who work with undocumented and BIPOC communities need to have a distinct approach to treating disordered eating.

Lucas emphasizes that disordered eating can be a symptom of white supremacist and colonial violence and control. Living under the threat of family separation, detention, and deportation at the hands of ICE can cause stress and trauma. This can contribute to disordered eating.

Disordered eating can go unrecognized in marginalized communities. They don’t fit into the perception or diagnostic criteria that see white, upper-class, cisgender women as the norm. This criterion also doesn’t factor in embodied trauma and circumstances such as poverty and food insecurity. Additionally, undocumented people may not seek medical care because of the history of medical violence and fear of detention and deportation.

For undocumented and BIPOC people, disordered eating can be caused and exacerbated by several factors. People may go without eating because they can’t afford food or can’t access food. Disordered eating can be a form of protest, a way to reclaim bodily autonomy, and a source of release. Detention can magnify this. People who are detained may not be given nutritious food, or even edible food. Meals may not be provided regularly. In response, people who are detained may go on hunger strikes or may be force fed.

Lucas offers harm reduction to address disordered eating within these conditions. For undocumented and BIPOC people, traditional modes of treatment aren’t always feasible. They may not be culturally competent and can collaborate with law enforcement. Seeking care can expose them to further violence. Harm reduction draws on the work of activists and organizers to offer a response to disordered eating that meets people where they are. It allows people to cope with, survive, and to resist violence in safe ways.

Examples of harm-reduction in this context are:

• Community-based support networks that provide mutual aid, care, and alternative treatments.
• Information on how to safely purge or restrict eating.
• Attention to cultural and ancestral food practices and indigenous models of care.
• Creating community kitchens and food distribution networks that are accessible and free from surveillance.

Mental health providers and those who specialize in eating disorders must keep this context in mind. We need to understand how factors such as racism, colonial violence, capitalism, and the criminalization of immigration affect our patients. Providers must recognize that the experiences of undocumented and BIPOC people differ from those of white, upper- and middle-class cisgender patients. For these communities, disordered eating can be a means of survival. This approach is trauma-informed and honors the experiences of state violence.

It is important that patients be able to trust their medical providers. Providers should avoid approaches that force and coerce people to change their eating habits. Providers should also ask questions about how the presence of ICE and other factors inhibit our access to food. Furthermore, medical providers should not refer patients to Eating Disorder Centers that collaborate with ICE and law enforcement.

In this moment of intensified ICE activity, surveillance, and fascist escalation, mental health and eating disorder providers have an ethical obligation to respond, not with neutrality, but with politicized care. People impacted by ICE are not just navigating personal distress; they are surviving systemic violence, displacement, racial criminalization, and food insecurity. If providers are not addressing these realities directly, they are complicit in the erasure.

SOURCE: Nalgona Positivity Pride • AUTHOR: Gloria Lucas • LAST UPDATED: June 13, 2025