The use of solitary confinement in US immigration detention has once again come under intense scrutiny, as a new report reveals a sharp spike during the early months of President Donald Trump’s second term. According to findings from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Peeler Immigration Lab, and researchers at Harvard Law School, over 10,000 people were placed in solitary confinement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities during a 14-month period ending in May 2025.

The study, which builds upon years of investigations into ICE detention practices, raises alarms about systemic abuse and the punitive direction of America’s immigration system. The report also underscores how the expansion of ICE’s funding under Trump’s administration has enabled practices that international experts consider inhumane and tantamount to torture.

From February to March 2025 alone, the number of detainees placed in solitary confinement increased by 6.5% per month on average-a rate more than six times higher than what was recorded between April and November 2024 under President Joe Biden. While solitary confinement has been used under multiple administrations, the new data suggests the pace and scale of its use have accelerated dramatically since Trump returned to office.

This surge coincides with a broader expansion of the US detention system. In August 2025, the number of people held in immigration detention reached over 60,000, the highest figure ever recorded in the United States. The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated ICE an unprecedented $75 billion in additional funding and quadrupled its detention budget, has only reinforced concerns about the government’s reliance on incarceration as a primary immigration strategy.

The United Nations defines solitary confinement as isolation without meaningful human contact for 22 hours or more per day. International standards stipulate that the practice should be banned except under “very exceptional circumstances,” should never be used against minors or the mentally ill, and should not last longer than 15 days, which the UN considers psychological torture.

Yet evidence collected by PHR and Harvard researchers shows that ICE continues to confine some of the most vulnerable detainees-people with severe mental illness, disabilities, and those at risk due to their sexual orientation or gender identity-for weeks and months at a time.

During the first three months of 2025, detainees identified as vulnerable were held in solitary confinement for more than twice as long as they had been during the same period in 2022. These findings echo earlier revelations from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), whose 2019 Solitary Voices investigation uncovered systemic overuse of solitary confinement in immigration detention.

Dr. Katherine Peeler, medical advisor for PHR and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, emphasized the broader implications:

“It’s important to think about this in the context of a rapidly escalating detention system in the United States. It appears to be becoming more and more punitive, and solitary confinement is part of that.”

ICE has long defended its use of solitary confinement as a last resort necessary for safety and order within detention centers. When asked about the latest findings, Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Guardian that detainee safety, security, and wellbeing are “a top priority at ICE.” She dismissed allegations that ICE is “weaponizing” solitary confinement as “DISGUSTING and FALSE.”

However, advocates and researchers argue that ICE’s data remains opaque and unreliable. Since December 2024, new federal reporting requirements have compelled the agency to document and release information about all solitary confinement placements, regardless of their duration. But, as Arevik Avedian, director of Empirical Research Services at Harvard Law School, explained, transparency remains elusive.

“There was a month during this Trump administration where the data was published, and then in the next updated version, two weeks later, that monthly information for solitary confinement disappeared, and then it was put back,” Avedian noted.

Such inconsistencies reinforce the perception of ICE detention as a “black box,” where official accounts often fail to reflect the full extent of conditions inside.

While the new report highlights Trump’s accelerated reliance on solitary confinement, it also acknowledges that the practice has persisted under multiple administrations. A February 2024 report from PHR documented increases in solitary confinement during the Biden era, particularly as facilities struggled with overcrowding and security issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ICE even used solitary confinement as a public health measure, isolating sick detainees in ways that blurred the line between medical precaution and punitive treatment.

This continuity points to deeper structural issues within the immigration detention system itself. The US operates the largest immigration detention network in the world, and solitary confinement has become a normalized-if deeply controversial-tool within that framework.

Human rights organizations have consistently urged ICE to abolish solitary confinement altogether. The new PHR report frames its findings as the latest entry in “over a decade of persistent advocacy and research.” It insists that ICE must publicly commit to ending the practice and adopt alternative approaches that prioritize health, dignity, and human rights.

Yet with immigration detention expanding in scale and funding, reform appears politically fraught. Trump’s second administration has doubled down on hardline enforcement policies, and congressional backing of massive budget increases for ICE suggests bipartisan support for detention-heavy approaches to immigration.

The report’s findings raise profound ethical and political questions. If solitary confinement constitutes psychological torture after 15 days, as the UN contends, then the United States is perpetuating systematic human rights violations within its borders. As the detention system grows, so too does the risk that vulnerable detainees will continue to suffer unseen and unprotected.

Dr. Peeler offered a sobering reflection on the incomplete nature of the available data:

“I kind of shudder to think what it’s really like if we had a truly complete, comprehensive data set of every single placement, every single person.”

For now, solitary confinement remains a shadowy corner of US immigration enforcement-a practice at once well-documented and yet shielded by gaps in transparency. Unless systemic reforms are enacted, the number of detainees subjected to isolation is likely to climb even higher, cementing solitary confinement as a defining feature of the American immigration system in the Trump era and beyond.

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Source: Weekly Blitz :: Writings