Report Details Solitary Confinement in U.S. Detention Centers

A report released by the National Immigrant Justice Center and Physicians for Human Rights, Invisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigrant Detention, documents the use of solitary confinement in U.S. detention centers and makes recommendations for Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Congress to abolish it. Considering the psychological and other health effects of solitary confinement, the lack of judicial oversight and avenues of legal redress for detainees, and the fact that immigrant detention is not synonymous with punishment, the report finds the current system, maintained by ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security fundamentally flawed.

Case studies of detention centers and jails and interviews with individuals who had experienced isolation showed arbitrary use of solitary, abuse, lack of medical and mental health treatment for chronic conditions and trauma, and discrimination based on gender, race, and language. The report was created from the testimony of former detainees and from data collected from ICE by freedom of information requests. Researches asked for statistics on the number of people held in solitary, and for detailed information on how long they were detained and what policies and decision making was governing their placement. ICE adopted a best practices document in 2011 to set up standards and policies for housing immigrant detainees. However, as of 2012, they have not moved any of their facilities or contracts into compliance and are not required to report on their actions.

There are approximately 34,000 people in U.S. detention centers on any given night. Therefore, what we have is a continuously growing number of people moving through a system that is extremely costly and highly unregulated.

The report concluded one main problem with immigrant detention in the U.S. is that all of the standards put forth by ICE are based on the American Correctional Association model, essentially rendering detention the same as jail. Detainees are often mixed in with people who have been convicted of a crime, and are often put into solitary confinement for not following rules, despite not having been convicted of a crime, or having papers to be processed through the judicial system. In addition, detainees often lack legal representation or avenues to challenge their placement in solitary. Faced with a choice of going to the hole, some people reported abandoning their immigration or asylum seeking process because they feared further dehumanization in isolation.

Housing people as detainees is much more expensive than alternatives to detention both psychologically and financially. The effects of solitary confinement have been studied on general prison populations in the U.S. In 2011, the US Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, concluded that isolation over 15 days is “prolonged” and could have lasting psychological effects. He concluded the use of solitary confinement should be avoided as much as possible, should not be used to house mentally ill prisoners, and should be overseen by an independent review body that could have daily access to those being isolated. These standards are hardly enforced in U.S. prisons, and even less regulated in the detention system. And though the cost of housing a large number of people in immigrant detention centers significantly outweighs the cost of more constructive methods of alternatives to detention, Congress has continued to pump money into the system.

A report by the Vera Institute of Justice found that community release programs work well for detainees and the vast majority of people show up for their scheduled hearings. However, for 2013, The U.S. House appropriated over 2 billion dollars for housing immigrants, considerably more than the 111 million for alternatives to detention. Reducing the number of people in detention centers would decrease the number of people who could be traumatized by solitary confinement.

The authors recommend several detailed steps for ICE and Congress to take to abolish the use of solitary within detention centers or jails holding detainees.The summary of these include: conducting a comprehensive review of segregation and solitary use nationwide, using alternatives to detention for vulnerable populations, not using jails or jail like facilities, developing legally enforceable regulations based on civil and human rights standards rather than correctional standards, and withdrawing monies from facilities who do not comply with all standards. Much like the Human Rights Coalition’s campaign against abuse and solitary confinement, the authors recommend segregation and isolation of detainees as a last resort, and independent monitoring by an outside organization with reports that are publicly available.