The death of a 61-year-old migrant with mental illness from Trinidad and Tobago is raising questions about the U.S. federal immigration agency’s adherence to international, federal, and state regulations governing the treatment of detainees. 

Charles Leo Daniel died on March 7 after being held in solitary confinement for at least 811 consecutive days, according to records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington—a facility operated by the private prison company GEO Group. 

It was likely, however, that Daniel spent about 1,000 consecutive days in solitary confinement. If true, his stay would be the longest stint in isolation of any migrant detainee on record in the U.S. Christian Dueñas, a 50-year-old Salvadoran detained at the Northwest Detention Center, told Prism that Daniel spent the last few months in isolation, where he died. 

ICE has not publicly revealed Daniel’s official cause of death, though their records say he suffered from a “significant mental illness.” The United Nations has stated that solitary confinement is considered torture if used for more than 15 consecutive days.

“In some ways, Mr. Daniel’s death is deeply shocking, and in another way, it’s not shocking at all,” said Angelina Godoy, the director of the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. Godoy led an extensive report on the conditions at the Northwest Detention Center. “It was the writing on the wall … It’s happened here before, and now it’s happened again.”

Data obtained by researchers after suing ICE show that Daniel spent at the very least 1,244 days in two stints in solitary confinement at the Northwest Detention Center. This contradicts ICE’s own guidelines, which require that solitary confinement due to a “special vulnerability” is “used only as a last resort and when no other viable housing options exist.”

ICE is also accused of flouting federal law, as Daniel was ordered removed from the U.S. in December 2020. A migrant must be deported within 180 days of their removal order and has the right to be released after six months unless the government demonstrates otherwise. Daniel was detained for almost four years with no known justification. 

Daniel also lacked legal representation. This violates a 2013 court ruling mandating the federal government to provide legal representation in California, Arizona, and Washington for migrant detainees who have severe mental disabilities. 

The decision-maker behind Daniel’s severe punishment is still unclear, and there has not been an investigation. 

Resisting oversight

Prolonged confinement can lead to lasting brain damage and reduced cognitive function, resulting in enduring psychological and physical disabilities, especially for people with preexisting mental health conditions, according to a report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) published in February. 

“It’s well known that isolating someone with a mental health disorder just makes the mental health disorder worse,” said Katherine Peeler, a researcher at Harvard Medical School and co-author of the PHR report. Banning solitary confinement for people with vulnerabilities seems like “a reasonable and easy ask.”

The use of solitary confinement has increased during the Biden administration, according to the PHR report, violating international norms and the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process. ICE oversaw more than 14,000 placements in solitary confinement between 2018 and 2023, although the actual figure is undoubtedly much higher, PHR showed. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General found in 2021 that ICE only tracked 11,893 placements in solitary confinement from 2015 to 2019, compared to 44,556 placements recorded by 82 individual facilities. The report concluded that “ICE cannot accurately report the actual use of segregation,” which is the official term for solitary confinement.

However, even flawed and incomplete data is hard to obtain since ICE systematically refuses to divulge information through Freedom of Information Act requests. Harvard researchers spent more than six years litigating with ICE to obtain data on solitary confinement. 

Tessa Wilson, the senior program officer for PHR, said ICE’s flawed data collection makes it impossible to determine how often solitary confinement is used.

Private contractors like GEO Group bolster ICE’s secrecy. According to the DHS Inspector General, ICE “does not know the full extent of detention facilities’ use of segregation, which hinders its ability to ensure compliance with policy and prevent and detect potential misuse.”

Last year, GEO Group repeatedly denied state inspectors of the departments of Health and Labor & Industries access to the Northwest Detention Center, claiming it was acting at the direction of ICE. The state inspectors were trying to implement House Bill 1470, signed in May 2023 by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, which would have set new standards for detention, including banning solitary confinement and guaranteeing access to mental health evaluations. In July 2023, GEO Group sued the state, arguing that its inspectors could not regulate the activity carried out by a federal contractor. 

On March 8, a district court judge sided with GEO Group and blocked the state of Washington from enforcing most of HB 1470. The decision can be appealed, but for now, no state inspector can enter the facility as they would in any other business in Washington—despite the documented lack of compliance of the Northwest Detention Center.

An unannounced federal inspection at the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center found a vacancy of more than 30 percent of the facility’s medical staff positions, and “preventative screening practices were not consistently applied.”

“If the general public doesn’t know what’s going on … you can’t improve the lives of the people inside, and you can’t hold accountable the people who are supposed to be protecting those people’s lives,” Peeler said.

More inspections could also shed light on how exactly the chain of command between GEO Group and ICE functions. Since 2017, Ada Rivera, who was previously the director of Health Services at GEO Group, has been the medical director of ICE’s Health Service Corps, which must “ensure appropriate review and oversight” of solitary confinement placements longer than 14 days, according to ICE’s guidelines. ICE did not respond to questions from Prism to comment.. 

As ICE systematically violated even its own commitments, close to 200 medical, academic, faith, human rights, civil rights, and immigration groups, including PHR, sent a letter on Feb. 29 to President Joe Biden, DHS, and ICE calling on them to publicly commit to ending solitary confinement. The coalition has yet to receive an official response.

Hunger strikers 

In 2018, the death by suicide of Mergensana Amar at the Northwest Detention Center prompted several elected officials to demand “transparency” while the governor called for an independent investigation. But to this day, no investigation has been made public, despite the cruel details that have surfaced regarding the agony of Amar—restrained, over the objection of medical professionals, even after he was declared brain dead.

The Tacoma Police Department reportedly handed the investigation of Daniel’s case over to ICE, which then expected GEO Group to produce a report.

“No one from ICE was there,” Dueñas told Prism by phone from the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, where he was transferred on March 16. Dueñas was sent to solitary confinement right after emergency services arrived at Daniel’s cell on March 7, two doors away from his. 

“GEO Group [employees] and the police were doing the investigation, then an ICE supervisor arrived and told the police: ‘When GEO gives us the report and the photos, we are going to pass them on to you,’” Dueñas, who has lived in the U.S. since he was 8 years old, recalled hearing. 

On average, the Northwest Detention Center holds people in solitary confinement for longer periods than any other ICE detention center in the U.S. (almost 70 days versus 27 days), according to the agency’s data. Of the 10 individuals who served the most extended periods in ICE solitary confinement from 2018 to September 2023, five were at Northwest. 

According to La Resistencia, a Washington-based grassroots organization calling for the abolition of immigration detention, at least five detainees at Northwest Detention Center have attempted suicide since Daniel’s death. To denounce detention conditions, more than 100 detainees were estimated to be in hunger at Tacoma Northwest Detention Center as of March 26.

Maru Mora Villalpando, the founder of La Resistencia, held a hunger strike for 14 days until March 26 to demand the shutdown of the Northwest Detention Center, the end of solitary confinement in the U.S., an investigation into Daniel’s death, and a reparation process. 

“This is not the only death, and it’s not gonna be the last unless there’s actual accountability and reparations,” Mora Villalpando said.