This commentary is the latest in The Word from Solitary Watch, our series of dispatches by Solitary Watch staff and contributors.

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Over the past year, I’ve been gathering data on solitary confinement in immigration detention and interviewing individuals in detention, along with civil liberties experts, for a fact sheet and an article co-published by Solitary Watch and The Nation. In conducting this research, I’ve found that the abuses present within immigration detention facilities are often versions of what occurs within our local, state, and federal prisons, though frequently with even less oversight and accountability. 

On April 30, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to end a record-long government shutdown that shuttered annual discretionary funding for the Department of Homeland Security for 76 days, though it notably omitted funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. 

The next day, ICE announced the apparent suicide of Cuban migrant Denny Adan Gonzalez, who had been held in solitary confinement in its custody—the 18th death and the fifth suicide of a person in ICE custody so far in 2026. Since President Trump retook office in January 2025, medical neglect, abuse, and solitary confinement within ICE detention facilities have led to over 40 individual deaths, with a person now dying every six days in the agency’s custody. 

As the agency looks on track to record the largest mortality rate in its history this year, it must be noted that our prison system’s unwavering dehumanization of individuals it deems “criminal” has, for decades, directly laid the groundwork for the appalling conditions and use of solitary confinement we now see rapidly expanding within ICE detention. 

It’s no secret that for the over two million people incarcerated nationwide—nearly 1% of our adult population—the jails and prisons at the local, state, and federal levels are riddled with a plethora of human rights violations, whether it be abuse at the hands of correctional officers, inedible food, torturous living conditions, and the use of practices like solitary confinement.  

Additionally, it is well known that solitary confinement has seriously detrimental effects on individuals who undergo it, including cognitive decline, mental health issues, shorter lifespans, and even driving some to suicide. Yet our nation’s prison system continues to hold at least 122,000 individuals in some form of isolated detention daily, according to the most recent count from a 2023 report by Solitary Watch and the Unlock the Box campaign. 

So it’s no surprise that the sharp influx of individuals deemed “illegal aliens” by our federal government, coupled with the current administration’s gutting and recent shuttering of crucial oversight offices, has only led to heightened abuses, worse conditions, and more solitary confinement within its facilities. A recent report from PHR found that within the first four months of the second Trump administration, ICE has placed individuals into solitary confinement at twice the rate it did between 2018 and 2023. 

Though ICE and parts of CBP were left without direct annual discretionary funding until the fall under the recent spending package due to disputes over reforms and limits on ICE officers, House and Senate Republicans are now looking to funnel an additional $70 billion into immigration enforcement operations through 2029 via their own legislation, which would forgo any reforms to the current system. 

The abuses present within the immigration detention system will continue as long as lawmakers continue to ignore the mistreatments in our own prison system. And until this sentiment shifts, anyone behind bars or in custody is susceptible to torture enabled by their dehumanization.

Read selected earlier dispatches:

• The Other ICE Killings
• What, to the Incarcerated American, Is Your Election Day?
• Trusted Sources: Why Mainstream Media Needs Incarcerated Voices
• Why Counting Everyone in Solitary Confinement Matters
• Prisons Are Where America Buries Its Problems. Solitary Confinement Is Where Prisons Bury Theirs.
• When Solitary Is Used to Silence
• Dismantle Prisons or Improve Conditions? As Someone Inside, I Know We Must Do Both
• Torture Before Trial
• The “Voiceless” Do Have Voices. Are We Listening?
• The Myth of Safety Through Punishment

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