More immigrants placed in isolation cells inside ICE detention in San Diego

The number of immigrants spending time in isolated cells inside a federal detention center in San Diego County has spiked in the last three months, according to data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Custody staff at the Otay Mesa Detention Center put 42 immigrants into “segregation” in August – eight times higher than a year prior – marking a sharp increase as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown swells detentions beyond capacity in some places. 

ICE uses the term “segregation” to describe placements in one to two person cells where detainees can be held for up to 24 hours a day. National detention standards which ICE follows define segregation as “confinement in an individual cell isolated from the general population.” Human rights groups, however, widely recognize the practice as solitary confinement. 

The upward trend in San Diego follows a similar one across the country, with ICE increasingly relying on the isolation cells as more than 60,000 people remain detained in immigration detention centers as of August.

More than 1,000 people have spent time in segregation in ICE detention every month since April, according to ICE data, which counts individuals who spend at least one day in segregation in a month. That’s about double the monthly number from last year. 

ICE uses isolation cells as a punitive as well as a protective measure, including for vulnerable detainees, according to its policies. Between January and March, the latest time frame reported by ICE, the average time spent in isolated cells in ICE custody nationwide was 38 days. That’s more than double the amount that constitutes torture according to the United Nations.

About a third of those placements were for disciplinary reasons. The next most common reasons were protective custody followed by mental health reasons. ICE does not provide the placement reasons for specific facilities.

The use of solitary confinement broadly has been criticized by human rights groups as inhumane, especially in immigration detention, where people are held for civil immigration proceedings or while awaiting deportation. Research shows that solitary confinement has detrimental physical and psychological health effects. 

As of September 11, the average daily population at Otay Mesa was about 1,400 people, according to ICE detention data. About 89% had no criminal convictions. 

In February, a German tourist said she spent more than a week inside solitary confinement at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, during which she “went so insane that she started punching the walls” and got blood on her hands, the woman’s friend told a TV station. News outlets across the country have documented other cases of immigrants placed in solitary confinement. 

CoreCivic, the private contractor managing the Otay Mesa Detention Center, took issue with the term solitary confinement and denied that it exists at its detention centers. 

Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said they use “restrictive housing units” for “various reasons” and noted that some people request to be in restrictive housing. He denied that CoreCivic uses it for disciplinary action for ICE detainees and said people placed in restrictive housing units have access to “courts, visitation, mail, showers, meals, all medical facilities and recreation.” 

Gustin also said the ICE data is “not reflective on how long detainees may have remained in segregation” and referred inewsource to ICE. 

Spokespeople for ICE did not answer questions from inewsource except to send a link to their segregation policy from 2013. 

That policy says placing someone in segregation is a “serious step” that should involve considering other options and should only happen when “necessary.” Segregation for administrative purposes should be “for the briefest term and under the least restrictive conditions practicable” and for vulnerable immigrants should only happen “as a last resort,” according to the policy. 

In December, ICE released an updated policy further outlining health evaluations and guidelines for who could be put in segregation and for what reasons. 

Under previous administrations, reports from government watchdogs and independent researchers have found issues with ICE’s use of isolation cells including poor record-keeping for immigrants with mental health risks and arbitrary placements for minor disciplinary issues and sometimes yearslong confinements. 

One person detained at Otay Mesa spent two years in solitary confinement through the end of 2019, according to a report published last year from Physicians for Human Rights. 

But the average time in isolation cells varies widely depending on the reason for the placement. For mental health placements, the average time was about 8 days. For disciplinary reasons, that number jumped to more than 30 days. For those deemed a “security threat” or placed in protective custody, which could include victims of violence, LGBTQ+ immigrants, or medically vulnerable, the averages were about 56 and 68 days, respectively. 

Inside Otay Mesa, reports of overcrowding have plagued the facility for months. 

“Basically everybody’s saying that it’s overcrowded. There’s people sleeping on the floor,” said Valerie Sigamani, an immigration attorney in San Diego, about her clients inside Otay Mesa. 

Crystal Felix, a local immigration attorney, said recent changes to immigration bonds have meant far fewer people are eligible to be released while they pursue their cases and that detainees are “languishing” inside as a result.

Several San Diego immigration attorneys who talked to inewsource said they haven’t had any clients held in solitary confinement recently.

In the spring, the California Department of Justice released a report following its state-mandated review of immigration detention centers in the state. The DOJ found that custody staff often did not conduct mental health reviews before putting immigrants in isolation cells. 

However at Otay Mesa, the state DOJ found that staff in multiple cases “approved restrictive housing placements for detainees experiencing significant mental health concerns.” That included one person who “had engaged in self-harm and been placed on suicide watch” during a nine-month stay in isolation.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, solitary confinement increases the risk of suicide, making existing mental health issues worse and bringing on new symptoms completely, with effects that can last past the dentention period.

The DOJ found that immigrant detainees across the six detention centers they inspected had “high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder, increased likelihood of self-harm behavior, and negative changes in self-perception.”

The 2024 report from Physicians for Human Rights, Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and Peeler Immigration Lab found that solitary confinement disproportionately impacted transgender people and people affected by mental illness and sometimes meant substandard medical care leading to “life-threatening conditions.”

The report also found that staff placed immigrants in solitary arbitrarily for minor infractions, such as using profanity or a “consensual kiss,” or in other cases due to overcrowding. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in 2023 investigated ICE’s use of isolation cells for immigrants with mental health issues. The office said they opened more than 60 such complaints in the previous four years. 

The Trump administration attempted to shutter that office as well as the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, two of the main oversight bodies for conditions inside immigration detention centers, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Office. A legal battle to restore the offices is ongoing. 

Meanwhile, the passage of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” has supercharged immigration enforcement with more than $170 billion in new funding over four years.