Tag

#solitary confinement

Isolation of a detained person for 22 or more hours per day without meaningful human contact. Prolonged solitary confinement (over 15 days) is considered cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under the Mandela Rules.

4 incidents

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

'Camp 57': ICE Detainees Held in a Former Disciplinary Unit Inside Angola Prison (September 2025–)

DHS reopened a disused punitive unit inside the largest maximum-security prison in the US to hold civil immigration detainees, and said the prison's fearsome reputation was the point. One former detainee's account describes harsh conditions, which ICE denies; that detainee was deported in breach of a court order. ACLU Louisiana is challenging detentions there in court.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Torture and Enforced Disappearances at 'Alligator Alcatraz' and Krome Detention Centers

Florida immigration detention centers are sites of documented torture including a punitive cage device, prolonged solitary confinement, unsanitary conditions, and enforced disappearances facilitated by the absence of any tracking system. At least six people died in Florida ICE facilities since October 2024.

Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern

Surge in Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention

At least 10,588 people were subjected to solitary confinement in immigration detention over 14 months spanning two administrations, with usage surging under the Trump administration. PHR reports that from 2018 to 2023 nearly three in four placements lasted 15 days or longer, the duration beyond which the UN Special Rapporteur on torture considers solitary confinement prohibited and capable of amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; whether a given placement amounts to torture depends on its purpose and severity, assessed case by case. DHS oversight offices were simultaneously decimated from 150 to 22 staff.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Guantanamo Bay Immigrant Detention: Solitary Confinement and Ill-Treatment

Immigrants transferred to Guantanamo Bay face conditions that Human Rights Watch says may amount to ill-treatment prohibited under international law: isolation for up to 23 hours a day, punitive restraint in a chair, and incommunicado detention. ACLU and CCR lawsuits challenge the offshore detention as unconstitutional and beyond the authority of the Immigration and Nationality Act.