Solitary Confinement in US Immigration Detention Spikes Under Trump Administration

Strategic Insights -

The use of solitary confinement in US immigration detention has sharply increased under President Donald Trump's second term, with over 10,000 people being placed in solitary confinement in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities from 2024 to 2025. This surge coincides with a broader expansion of the US detention system, which has seen the number of people held in immigration detention reach a record high of over 60,000 in August 2025. Researchers from Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), the Peeler Immigration Lab, and Harvard Law School have found that the practice of solitary confinement, which the United Nations defines as isolation without meaningful human contact for 22 hours or more per day, has become a normalized and deeply controversial tool within the US immigration detention framework.

Key Takeaways:

  • The use of solitary confinement in US immigration detention has sharply increased under President Donald Trump's second term, with over 10,000 people being placed in solitary confinement from 2024 to 2025.
  • The expansion of ICE's funding under Trump's administration has enabled practices that international experts consider inhumane and tantamount to torture, including solitary confinement.
  • The number of detainees placed in solitary confinement increased by 6.5% per month on average between February and March 2025, a rate more than six times higher than what was recorded between April and November 2024 under President Joe Biden.
  • ICE continues to confine vulnerable detainees, including those with severe mental illness, disabilities, and those at risk due to their sexual orientation or gender identity, for weeks and months at a time.
  • Researchers have found that 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.
  • The use of solitary confinement has been linked to deeper structural issues within the immigration detention system, including the over-reliance on incarceration as a primary immigration strategy.
  • Human rights organizations have consistently urged ICE to abolish solitary confinement altogether, and the PHR report frames its findings as the latest entry in "over a decade of persistent advocacy and research".

Statistics:

  • Over 10,000 people were placed in solitary confinement in ICE facilities from 2024 to 2025.
  • The number of detainees placed in solitary confinement increased by 6.5% per month on average between February and March 2025.
  • In 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.
  • The number of people held in immigration detention reached a record high of over 60,000 in August 2025.
  • ICE's detention budget was quadrupled under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which allocated the agency an unprecedented $75 billion in additional funding.

Sources:

  • "US Immigration Detention: New Report Reveals Spike in Solitary Confinement Under Trump" by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
  • "Solitary Voices" investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)
  • "US Immigration Detention: Systemic Overuse of Solitary Confinement" report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR)
  • "Detention in the United States: A Human Rights Perspective" report by Amnesty International
  • "Solitary Confinement in US Immigration Detention: A Systemic Abuse" article by The Guardian