DETENTION IS TORTURE
Families, like Alex Lora’s (pictured above) are separated by immigration detention every day. When Alex was first taken into detention, his two-year old son was placed in foster care. He fought to bring his baby home. But what are the long-term mental health effects of this system of isolation?
While immigration detention may not be traditionally understood to be a form of torture, the emotional and physical abuse that occurs inside detention centers produces a system that is psychologically torturous.
In its report, “Immigration Detention is Psychological Torture: Strategies for Surviving Our Fight for Freedom,” Freedom for Immigrants documents nearly 2,000 instances of emotional distress caused or exacerbated by the isolation inherent in the U.S. immigration detention system. Examples of these psychological, and sometimes physical, assaults include an inability to connect with family or attorneys, transfers away from communities of support, solitary confinement, extreme temperatures, attacks on religious practices, and other forms of abuse by U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement.
Overview
We developed an in-depth 75-question interview, which we conducted with people currently in ICE detention, people who have formerly been in ICE detention, and loved ones of people currently or formerly in ICE detention. Our survey found that family separation and isolation was the most common and greatest stressor among people in detention. Other top stressors include lack of access to an attorney, bad food, racial discrimination, lack of control over one’s day-to-day life, and the uncertainty of when/if they will be released.
““The purpose of immigration detention is to indefinitely cage people in intolerable conditions and isolate them from their loved ones with the goal of forcing them to give up hope and stop fighting their cases. The public has lifted up an alternative vision in which individuals live with their families and communities, instead of being caged by an agency that has an incentive to neglect and abuse their human rights.”
- Rebecca Merton, Director of Visitation and Independent Monitoring at Freedom for Immigrants.
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As the Trump administration continues its attacks on avenues for release, including bond and parole, more people are detained for longer periods of time. Recent expansion of ICE detention is concentrated in extremely isolated rural facilities with track records of abuse. Given the backlog in immigration court, individuals denied release face lengthy periods of detention with no set end date in terrible conditions.