‘They’re Torturing Me’: ICE Uses Solitary Confinement to Scare People Into Self-Deporting

A Lee Enterprises and Arizona Daily Star investigation, based on dozens of interviews over seven months, found that ICE officers use solitary confinement as a tool to pressure detainees into abandoning their immigration claims and self-deporting — a practice experts call unconstitutional. Detainees described being isolated for days or weeks: a Russian asylum seeker said he was placed in solitary for refusing to “voluntarily” return to Russia, and an Iranian dissident said she was isolated after disclosing suicidal thoughts. The Buffalo (Batavia) facility in western New York has been among the nation’s heaviest users of solitary confinement.