Report: “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention

A report by students and faculty of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program and Harvard Law School, members of the Peeler Immigration Lab at Harvard Medical School, and Physicians for Human Rights (“Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention”) begins its Executive Summary as follow:

“The United States maintains the world’s largest immigration detention system, detaining tens of thousands of people in a network of facilities, including those managed by private prison corporations, county jails, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). At the time of writing, ICE is detaining over 35,000 people, including long-term residents of the United States, people seeking asylum, and survivors of trafficking or torture. Instead of finding refuge, these people are held in ICE custody for extended periods, enduring inhuman conditions such as solitary confinement (dubbed `segregation’ by ICE), where they are isolated in small cells with minimal contact with others for days, weeks, or even years. In many instances, such conditions would meet the definition of torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law.”

As the L.A. Times reports, ICE, according to the report, 

“used solitary confinement at its detention facilities more than 14,000 times between 2018 and 2023, including one California immigrant detainee who was held for 759 days . .. . . ay. The report found that solitary placements at ICE facilities lasted on average about a month. Nearly half exceeded 15 days.  Solitary confinement is used in ICE detention facilities as a form of punishment as well as to protect certain at-risk immigrants.”

KJ