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ICE locked suicidal and seriously ill detainees in solitary confinement for four times longer than the U.N.’s torture threshold, according to PunchUp analysis of new figures released by his notorious immigration agency.
Donald Trump, 80, promised to jail and deport “the worst of the worst.” But ICE’s official numbers tell a crueler story.
FY2026 detention statistics quietly posted on July 20—the agency’s first release since April 9, ending a three-month blackout that spawned at least three lawsuits—lay bare the Trump administration’s refusal to follow international human rights law on solitary confinement.
Between 835 and 1,104 people were put in isolation every month this fiscal year, and a GEO Group-run facility topped ICE’s own segregation table every single month.
For the most vulnerable detainees the agency tracks—people with serious mental or medical illness, on hunger strike or on suicide watch—the average unbroken spell in solitary reached 63 days in the winter quarter.
That is more than five times the average of 12 days in early 2022, and more than four times the U.N.’s 15-day threshold for treatment that can amount to torture.