U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement used solitary confinement in its detention centers more than 14,000 times between 2018 and 2023, including a California immigrant detainee who was held for 759 days, according to a report released Tuesday.

The report found that solitary placements at ICE facilities lasted an average of about a month. Nearly half exceeded 15 days.

Solitary confinement is used in ICE detention centers as a form of punishment and to protect certain high-risk immigrants.

Human rights groups say the practice is harmful and should be drastically reduced in all U.S. prisons and detention centers. The United Nations has called solitary confinement for more than fifteen consecutive days a form of torture.

ICE has come under fire in recent years from state officials and human rights groups for its reliance on the practice and lack of proper oversight and monitoring.

The 71-page report, one of the most comprehensive investigations to date into ICE’s use of solitary confinement, was conducted by Physicians for Human Rights

Harvard Law School

and Harvard Medical School. It was based on internal ICE data from 125 detention facilities, obtained through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.

Researchers say ICE’s use of solitary confinement and associated time periods are both on track to grow through 2023, although data was only collected through September 13.

“The harm is so clearly established that it is irrefutable,” said Sabrineh Ardalan, director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic. “That’s why it’s shocking that no significant change has been made.”

ICE spokesman Mike Alvarez said the agency only places detainees in isolation after carefully considering alternatives. “Administrative segregation placements for special vulnerability should only be used as a last resort,” Alvarez said. “Segregation is never used as a method of retaliation.”

According to the report, about 700 solitary placements lasted at least 90 days, and 42 lasted more than a year.

The longest completed case of solitary confinement was

that of

A Mexican woman was held at San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center for 759 consecutive days through December. August 2, 2019. Her placement was coded as “inmate requested”

and the reasoning was listed as ‘other’ even though the record was also listed

showed a disciplinary violation for fighting, said Arevik Avedian, director of empirical research services at Harvard Law School.

Two other cases lasted longer but are not included in the report because they were still ongoing at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, on September 13 for 817 and 811 days, respectively.

ICE standards generally limit disciplinary isolation to 30 days per violation. But administrative segregation, which is considered non-punitive and intended for the safety of the inmate, can be indefinite.

ICE did not report the mental health status of the isolated immigrants in every file. But of the nearly 8,800 records that did include mental health information, about 40% documented mental health issues.

For people identified as transgender, the average length of solitary confinement was two months, researchers said.

Alvarez said ICE does not place detainees in solitary confinement solely because of mental illness unless directed or recommended by medical staff

.

Inmates are often placed there because they are requesting protective custody, as a result of a disciplinary hearing, or to quarantine when medical housing is not available. Inmates with mental health problems are under the care of medical professionals, he said, and are removed from solitary confinement if they determine it has led to a deterioration in their health and an appropriate alternative is available.

According to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization at Syracuse University, approximately 38,500 immigrants were detained by ICE as of January 28. Two-thirds of those arrested have no criminal record and many others have only committed minor offenses, such as traffic violations.

ICE has said it wants to reduce the use of solitary confinement over the past decade.

The agency issued a guideline in 2013 limiting its use, especially for people with vulnerabilities such as disabilities or mental illness.

A 2015 memo emphasized protections for transgender people, specifying that solitary confinement “should only be used as a last resort.”

A 2022 directive strengthened protection and reporting requirements for people with mental illnesses in solitary confinement.

Inmates held in solitary confinement are isolated in small cells away from the general population for up to 24 hours a day and have minimal contact with other people. Long-term solitary confinement is known to have adverse health effects, including the risk of suicide and brain damage.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a 2022 bill that would have regulated and significantly reduced solitary confinement in jails, prisons and ICE facilities.

Watchdog reports have repeatedly identified shortcomings in ICE’s approach and oversight of solitary confinement.

In 2021, the California Department of Justice released a comprehensive overview of ICE detention in the state

can reviews

three privately operated facilities. Cal DOJ found little distinction between conditions for inmates in administrative isolation and for inmates held for disciplinary reasons. The agency also found that detainees with mental illnesses were being held in solitary confinement, despite their conditions worsening due to isolation.

“Most segregated inmates spend 22 hours a day in their cells, and when they are allowed outside, they typically recreate in individual cages,” the California report said.

The same year, a report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that ICE did not consistently comply with reporting requirements for solitary confinement. Researchers analyzed data from fiscal years 2015 through 2019 and found that ICE did not maintain evidence showing that it considered alternatives to isolation in 72% of solitary confinement placements.

Citing that report, Democratic senators including the late Dianne Feinstein and California Sen. Alex Padilla pressed ICE leaders about the agency’s “excessive and seemingly arbitrary use of solitary confinement,” calling it a longstanding problem.

A 2022 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that information detailing vulnerabilities and explanations about what led to their placement in solitary confinement

there

inconsistent. The GAO analyzed solitary confinement placements from 2017 through 2021 and found that about 40% were for disciplinary reasons and 60% were for administrative reasons, such as preventive detention.

ICE says facilities staff are required to provide people in administrative segregation the same privileges as people in general housing, including recreation, visitation, law library access and telephones. They can also spend extra time outside of isolation socializing or doing volunteer work such as cleaning. The privileges for people in disciplinary segregation vary based on the amount of supervision needed. March

where dozens of formerly incarcerated people interviewed by the report’s authors described having limited or no access to phone calls, recreation, medical care and medications.

Karim Golding, 39, from Jamaica, was detained by ICE from 2016 to 2021. At the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama, which ICE stopped using in 2022 due to its “long history of serious deficiencies,” Golding said he spent nearly two months in the Etowah County Detention Center. solitary confinement after testing positive for COVID-19. He now lives in New York.

Golding said that during the height of the pandemic, when the facility was admitting busloads of new inmates without following proper distancing or isolation guidelines, he urged staff to conduct testing. He and other details filed dozens of sick calls requesting tests.

When staff finally complied, he and several others were placed in solitary confinement after testing positive for the coronavirus. He said he believes the action was retaliation.

Golding remembers sometimes spending 40 hours at a time in his small 8-by-10-foot cell, with holes in the concrete walls and no access to a shower. The isolation was lonely, he remembered.

“One night I went to sleep and woke up choking in the cell,” he said. “I started crying because there was no panic button in these cells. There was no officer, nothing for help.”

Two other detainees reached by The Times said they were held in solitary confinement for several days in facilities in Texas and Louisiana during a hunger strike.

As a candidate, President Biden pledged to end the use of solitary confinement in federal prisons. He signed an executive order in 2022 pledging to ensure that incarcerated people are “free from long-term segregation.”

The authors of Tuesday’s report called on Biden to phase out the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention.

“There is still time,” Ardalan said. “This is a legacy he can leave to his government.”