February 6, 2024
Report Echoes Whistleblower’s Alarms on Solitary Confinement in ICE Detention
WASHINGTON – “Endless Nightmare: Torture and Inhuman Treatment in Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention,” a report released today by the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, Harvard Medical School’s Peeler Immigration Lab, and Physicians for Human Rights, shines a light on the use of solitary confinement within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities. This report corroborates longstanding warnings from our whistleblower client Ellen Gallagher, who as an attorney for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties highlighted the inhumane and improper use of solitary confinement for mentally ill and medically vulnerable immigrants in ICE custody.
This comprehensive study draws from data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, interviews with formerly detained immigrants, and an extensive review of ICE’s practices to reveal a disturbing reliance on solitary confinement that violates both ICE’s own policies and international human rights standards. The report finds ICE placed people in solitary confinement over 14,000 times from 2018 to 2023, with many people facing prolonged isolation.
Dana Gold, Senior Counsel and lead attorney for Ms. Gallagher, said:
“Nearly 10 years after Ellen Gallagher began blowing the whistle internally in 2014 about ICE’s widespread misuse of solitary confinement on noncitizens in ICE civil detention, the report issued today documents that ICE systemically and knowingly continues this abusive practice with impunity. Whistleblowers and advocates have been vital to exposing ongoing, unchecked abuses in the opaque immigration detention system; transparency must now be met with accountability. Congress and DHS must end the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention with the urgency ending torture warrants.”
Contact: Andrew Harman, Communications Director
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (202) 926-3304
Government Accountability Project
Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, Government Accountability Project’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, Government Accountability Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.