The cages are getting smaller and more abusive.

The United States government has placed detained immigrants in solitary confinement more than 14,000 times in the last five years, and the average duration is almost twice the 15-day threshold that the United Nations has said may constitute torture, according to a new analysis of federal records by researchers at Harvard and the nonprofit group Physicians for Human Rights.

The report, based on government records from 2018 through 2023 and interviews with several dozen former detainees, noted cases of extreme physical, verbal and sexual abuse for immigrants held in solitary cells.

Overall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining more than 38,000 people – up from about 15,000 at the start of the Biden administration in January 2021

Solitary confinement placements in the third quarter of 2023 were 61 percent higher than in the third quarter of the previous year, according to ICE’s quarterly reports.

More than 680 cases of isolation lasted at least three months, the records show; 42 of them lasted more than one year.