Education & Advocacy
Solitary Confinement
We inform the public and policymakers about the severe physical and mental suffering brought on by prolonged solitary confinement, along with concrete strategies and tools to eliminate its use in U.S. immigration detention.
GUIDES AND ADVISORIES
Egregious abuse of solitary confinement is found throughout the U.S. immigration detention system. This guide provides attorneys and advocates with concrete strategies and tools to free people in U.S. immigration detention from solitary confinement. It details the administrative rules governing solitary confinement in immigration detention, the types of evidence to gather in support of a demand to leave solitary confinement, and administrative and federal courts strategies to free people from solitary confinement.
SOCIAL ADVOCACY
The average solitary cell is smaller than a bathroom. Solitary confinement is torture—linked to higher risks of death, mental illness, and recidivism.
The New York legislature passed a ban on solitary confinement called the HALT Solitary Law. But prison officials have stalled its implementation, allowing people to be locked in tiny cells for 23 hours a day—often for months or years.
RFK Human Rights joins New York grassroots human rights defenders in calling for the immediate implementation of the Halt Solitary Law.
Did you know that nationally, nearly 50% of all suicides by incarcerated people take place in solitary confinement?
Prolonged solitary confinement is a form of torture under international human rights law, yet is widely used in the U.S. While its use is often justified as a safety measure, studies show it actually makes prisons less safe by inflicting psychological torture that can lead to increased aggression, severe mental health deterioration, strokes, heart attacks, and even death.
On World Mental Health Day, RFK Human Rights exposes the chilling reality of this inhumane practice, recognized as psychological torture under international human rights law.
After speaking out against abuse and leading hunger strikes in ICE detention, 46-year-old Honduran immigrant Angel Argueta Anariba was repeatedly retaliated against—locked in prolonged solitary confinement and assaulted by officers at the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center.
In April 2024, RFK Human Rights, the National Immigration Project, and Bronx Defenders filed a lawsuit against ICE and private prison operator GEO Group on his behalf.
OTHER MEDIA
In February 2023, RFK Human Rights and grassroots partners hosted the UN’s International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement (EMLER) in a tour of the United States. We highlighted campaigns against police and prison abuses of Black people in California, New York, Louisiana, and Minnesota, meeting with EMLER representatives in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.
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