Misuse of solitary confinement in immigration cases

Solitary Watch - [In June] the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), in conjunction with The Intercept, NBC News, and Univision, published the results of an extensive investigation into the use of solitary confinement in American immigration detention facilities. The report, which reviewed 8,488 recorded stays in solitary confinement between 2012 and early 2017, found that solitary was used “to punish immigrants for offenses as minor as consensual kissing and to segregate hunger strikers, LGBTQ detainees and people with disabilities.” More than half of all solitary stays covered in the report lasted longer than 15 days.

Nearly one-third of the stints in solitary involved someone with a mental illness, and 373 involved someone on suicide watch, resulting in “a revolving door between solitary confinement and medical isolation cells for people deemed at high risk of trying to hurt themselves.” This “revolving door” is reminiscent of the cycle of solitary confinement for people with mental illness that exists within prisons and jails throughout the United States.

At a time when Trump’s brutal policies have drawn attention to conditions in immigration detention, these alarming findings help confirm what advocates have long suspected, and amplify what incarcerated immigrants have long experienced: Solitary confinement is overused and abused by immigration authorities, and the unique position of migrants in detention can render them especially powerless to resist or endure their torturous conditions.