Both of Washington’s senators and 10 of their colleagues sent a letter Friday to top immigration and homeland security leaders calling for an end to the misuse of solitary confinement in immigration detention.
Sen. Patty Murray, Sen. Maria Cantwell and their colleagues urged Department of Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Patrick Lechleitner to establish meaningful alternatives to solitary confinement. The privately-run federal immigration detention center in Tacoma has been found by researchers to keep people in solitary confinement for longer, on average, than most other ICE facilities.
“Under no circumstances should ICE use solitary confinement as a form of discipline in civil immigration detention,” the letter reads. “ICE should also prioritize vulnerable individuals for release into post-release care plans whenever appropriate, rather than placing them in solitary confinement in the first place.”
Senate members who signed the letter included Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Cory Booker and senators from California, Hawaii, New Mexico, Illinois, Vermont and Massachusetts.
A spokesperson for the GEO Group, the contractor that runs the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, said in an emailed statement that the DHS has established Performance-Based National Detention Standards that govern the provision of contracted services at all federal immigration centers, including the use of the special management unit at the NWICP. According to the standards, detainees can be placed in special management units for administrative segregation or disciplinary segregation.
“The housing of persons in the special management unit at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, including persons seeking or in need of protective custody, is coordinated with and closely monitored by ICE in strict accordance with all applicable federal requirements,” the spokesperson said.
ICE did not respond Monday to a request for comment.
The GEO Group runs 17 other detention facilities for ICE, and according to federal court records, its annual profit at the NWIPC between 2010 and 2018 ranged from $18.6 million to $23.5 million. The Tacoma facility has a capacity for 1,575 people, making it one of the largest ICE detention centers in the nation.
At a minimum, the senators said DHS and ICE must issue binding rules limiting its use of solitary confinement and follow them. New practices, they said, must ensure that those who are held in solitary receive the same rights as others in ICE detention, including the same access to counsel, telephones, visitation, food and hygiene.
ICE was also called on to ensure that each of its facilities rigorously tracks and reports its use of solitary confinement, including what alternatives to solitary were considered. Alongside additional reporting requirements, the senators asked DHS to ensure individuals in solitary can file grievances about solitary confinement without fear of retribution.
In a statement, Murray’s office said the letter came amid serious concerns about the use of solitary confinement at the NWIPC in Tacoma following the death of 61-year-old Charles Leo Daniel.
Researchers from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights found that Daniel, who died in his cell March 7, served 1,244 days in solitary confinement in two periods separated by only two days. According to UW, it was the second-longest stretch anyone in ICE custody has endured in solitary confinement since 2018.
Daniel’s death is listed as pending by the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office, meaning additional testing or investigation is needed to certify the cause. One other person has died at the detention facility while held in solitary confinement. In 2018, 40-year-old Mergensana Amar killed himself in his cell. He had entered the United States the year before and sought asylum.
In a statement to The News Tribune last week, Murray said she expects a full investigation into the circumstances of Daniel’s death and the facility’s use of solitary confinement.
“I will continue to pay close attention and assess next steps as we have more information,” she said.
The Senate members wrote that they were “deeply concerned” that ICE was continuing to violate its own policies on solitary confinement. The standards the detention center is meant to adhere to, the PBNDS 2011, calls solitary confinement “segregated confinement,” and it states that incidents that could lead to disciplinary segregation are adjudicated by a disciplinary panel, and a detainee can generally be held in such confinement for up to 30 days.
The senators who signed the letter referenced a February report from Physicians for Human Rights that found on average, detainees at the NWIPC are kept in solitary confinement for some of the longest periods. Out of 125 facilities examined, it ranked ninth, with an average length of 55 days.
Between 2022 and 2023, ICE’s use of solitary confinement “skyrocketed,” by 61 percent, the senators wrote. Between 2018 and 2023, ICE placed people in solitary more than 14,000 times, according to the letter, leaving them in a cell without human contact for more than 22 hours a day.
And researchers found ICE isolated individuals as punishment for minor infractions, such as for using profanity or not getting out of a bunk during a count, the senators wrote. Others were allegedly placed in solitary in apparent retaliation for submitting a complaint or participating in a hunger strike.
Once in solitary confinement, the senators said individuals endured additional punishments such as being denied access to legal visits, reduced meal portions and being forced to sleep on a cement or steel platform without a mattress and with fluorescent lights on throughout the night.
The senators noted that the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners finds that prolonged solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. By these standards, the senators wrote, ICE’s practices are “in clear violation of international norms.”
Their letter included five questions to Director Mayorkas and Acting Director Lechleitner, asking for written responses by Friday:
1. What steps does ICE plan to take to limit solitary confinement, including establishing meaningful alternatives to solitary confinement and phasing out its use in immigration detention?
2. For each full calendar year since 2017, how many times has ICE placed individuals in solitary confinement?
3. What barriers does ICE face in documenting alternatives to solitary confinement?
4. Since 2013, what steps has ICE taken to comply with its internal guidance governing solitary confinement?
5. What steps has ICE taken to respond to the recommendations of the Government Accountability Office and the DHS Inspector General in the reports cited above?
