Cambridge, Massachusetts - A new study from Harvard University and Physicians for Human Rights has found that detained migrants are being subjected to psychological torture in US detention centers.

The investigation pointed to the regular and prolonged use of solitary confinement in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers as evidence of psychological torture.

Under the definition given in the study, solitary confinement is considered psychological torture once it has lasted 15 days or more.

Harvard and PHR researchers discovered in data provided to them by ICE that about 14,000 people had been placed in solitary confinement between April 2024 and August 2025.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Marjorie Taylor Greene praises Florida's ban on weather manipulation: "clear, God-given skies!"

"Solitary confinement in US immigration detention is not used as an exceptional measure, but as a routine and punitive tool," the report declares.

"The adverse health effects of solitary confinement are well-established... Including post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harm, elevated suicide risks, lasting brain damage, and hallucinations."

Over the course of the first ten months of President Donald Trump's second presidency, the rate of solitary confinement has nearly doubled what it was between 2018 and 2023.

It was also discovered that the conditions found within the detention centers – which largely resemble prisons, despite not being officially classified as such – violated international humanitarian standards.

PHR Executive Director Sam Zarifi condemned the use of solitary confinement as torture, as well as the conditions in which many detainees are being kept.

"People are being tortured simply for seeking a better life in the United States," Zarifi said in comments cited by the Mexican Press Agency.

"Solitary confinement is not only an inhumane practice – it violates both national and international law."