The Advocates for Human Rights are among the 194 human rights organizations that have signed on to a letter from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program Physicians for Human Rights

RE: End solitary confinement in ICE detention

Dear President Biden, Secretary Mayorkas, and Acting Director Lechleitner:

The undersigned 194 organizations-–which include medical, academic, human rights, immigration, civil rights, and faith groups—write today with an urgent call to action: DHS must end the practice of solitary confinement in all immigration detention centers. A new report released February 6th, “Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention, details the horrors of solitary confinement in ICE custody. The report, a collaboration between Physicians for Human Rights, researchers at Harvard Medical School, and faculty and students at Harvard Law School, is the latest in a seemingly perpetual documentation of ICE’s excessive and arbitrary use of solitary confinement and the agency’s violations of both international conventions and domestic and international legal standards. ICE lacks meaningful or effective oversight or accountability for these abuses, which inflict serious and sometimes irreparable harm on detained people. In short, the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention certainly meets the definition of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law, and in multiple cases documented in the report, crosses that threshold to constitute torture. It is far past time to end it.

This latest report details FOIA data revealing that people were placed in solitary confinement over 14,000 times in the last five years alone (the report also notes this is likely an undercount), with an average duration of 27 days–nearly double the 15-day threshold that United Nations human rights experts find constitutes torture. Disturbingly, in 10 of those instances, people were held in solitary confinement for over a year. The report also demonstrates, in harrowing detail, how people in solitary confinement are held in small cells in isolation for minor infractions, as a form of retaliation, or as “protection.” This isolation, with little to no human contact, exacerbates existing mental health

conditions or leads to new ones, and underscores the dehumanizing, punitive, and carceral nature of ICE detention.

People in detention, their loved ones, attorneys, and advocates have been sounding alarm bells for over a decade. Yet time and time again, we see well-documented instances of ICE violating its own written policies. You are no doubt aware of the many official complaints, letters, reports, congressional hearings, and persistent calls for reform, including from Members of Congress, independent government agencies, state officials, whistleblowers, government watchdog groups, as well as civil and human rights NGOs.

Over a decade ago—soon after a major report detailed ICE’s overuse of solitary confinement—ICE issued a “Segregation Directive” providing written guidance to ICE detention sites. The directive stated that solitary confinement, particularly for vulnerable populations, should be used “only as a last resort and when no other viable housing alternatives exist.” Homeland

Notably, there is overwhelming support for ending the use of solitary confinement in the United States, including from President Biden: in 2020, the Biden/Harris campaign pledged to largely end the use of solitary confinement. Members of Congress have also introduced federal legislation to end solitary confinement. At the state and local level, more and more elected officials are taking action: since 2009, the vast majority of states have passed bills to restrict or end the use of solitary confinement.

ICE has failed to respond effectively to the mountain of evidence that it is keeping people in solitary confinement in both unnecessarily and dangerous, and at times life-threatening, conditions. We know the profound physical and mental health deterioration caused by solitary confinement. Efforts at modest reforms, such as improving data collection, reporting and oversight, and tweaking internal written guidance, have done little to stop egregious human rights violations in ICE detention. It is time to end ICE’s use of solitary confinement, full stop.

“Endless Nightmare”: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention contains detailed recommendations that can serve as a roadmap for phasing out your use of solitary confinement, as well as immediate and urgent reforms to undertake. In the meantime, we urge you to immediately and publicly commit to ending solitary confinement in ICE detention.

Sincerely,

Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program Physicians for Human Rights

Joined by:

The Advocates for Human Rights