As the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention centers increases under the Biden administration, according to the federal data, some Democratic-aligned lawmakers are demanding an end to the practice — or at least the creation of rules that would limit it — accusing the federal government in a letter of being “in clear violation of international norms.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “has isolated individuals in its facilities for months and even years, used solitary as punishment for minor infractions, and placed in solitary vulnerable individuals, including those with mental health conditions,” Massachusetts Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin wrote in a letter Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE acting Deputy Director Patrick Lechleitner.
“ICE has failed to follow its own guidelines that limit both the punitive use of solitary confinement and the imposition of additional forms of punishment in solitary confinement,” added the lawmakers, who were joined by eight other Democratic senators and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
ICE statistics show the agency detains more than 38,000 people each day, an increase of about 15,000 since President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
The senators cited a study released last month that found 1,106 uses of “segregation” — informally known as solitary confinement — in the third quarter of 2023, up 61% from a year prior. Researchers at Harvard University and the nonprofit group Physicians for Human Rights based the analysis on ICE’s own data, and also established the agency placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times in the past five years with an average duration of 27 days — “well exceeding the 15-day threshold that United Nations human rights experts have found constitutes torture.”
Philip Torrey, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Law School and researcher on the study, said that given the findings,…
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