GPT-4o: What happens in the U.S. does not stay in the U.S. The normalization of mass detention, surveillance, and expulsion has already inspired copycat regimes globally.

Cruel by Design – The Systemic Abuse of Immigration Detention in the United States

by ChatGPT-4o

Introduction

The trio of reports—Amnesty International’s The Cruelty Must End, Physicians for Human Rights’ Cruelty Campaign: Solitary Confinement in U.S. Immigration Detention, and the Immigrant Defense Project & Center for Constitutional Rights’ Cruel by Design—together provide a chilling, meticulously documented account of the systemic cruelty embedded in the U.S. immigration detention system. What emerges from these documents is not a tale of administrative oversight or sporadic abuse, but a deliberate, ideologically driven machinery that weaponizes detention to exclude, dehumanize, and break the spirit of migrants—especially under the revived and intensified Trump-era policies. The evidence presented reveals a convergence of political ideology, economic incentives, racialized control, and legal impunity.

This essay synthesizes the most urgent lessons for all stakeholders and concludes with a worldview that questions the sustainability of U.S. democratic institutions, the erosion of international human rights norms, and the global risks of emulating or ignoring such systems.

Key Lessons Clustered by Stakeholder

1. For U.S. Government Officials (Federal and State)

• Cruelty is systemic, not accidental: Detention is used as a punishment for civil violations. This violates the foundational claim that immigration proceedings are administrative, not punitive.

• Solitary confinement amounts to torture: As PHR shows, over 10,500 immigrants were subjected to solitary confinement between April 2024 and May 2025, with the practice intensifying under Trump’s second administration. Nearly half of these individuals were vulnerable populations (e.g., mentally ill), despite ICE’s own policies that limit such use.

• State complicity is growing: Reports document how states like Florida, Indiana, and Nebraska are partnering with ICE using disaster relief funds to build detention centers like “Alligator Alcatraz”—a dangerous shift in federalism that dilutes accountability and escalates harm.

• Oversight has been gutted: The Trump administration’s dismantling of DHS oversight offices in 2025 removed over 300 watchdog staff, effectively eliminating federal safeguards.

Lesson: Detention policies must be reformed at both federal and state levels to align with constitutional protections and international law. Legislative and judicial intervention is urgent.

2. For International Bodies and Human Rights Institutions

• Mass violations of international norms: The U.S. violates the UN’s Mandela Rulesby routinely subjecting migrants to prolonged solitary confinement (often exceeding 15 days) and denying medical care, legal access, and basic hygiene.

• U.S. impunity undermines international standards: Despite evidence of systemic abuse, the U.S. has refused to sign the UN Optional Protocol Against Torture, cutting itself off from meaningful international accountability.

• Global ripple effects: U.S. deportation practices during the COVID-19 pandemic spread the virus internationally, with documented outbreaks traced to deportees sent back to Guatemala, Haiti, and others.

Lesson: International organizations must consider targeted sanctions, public condemnation, and legal mechanisms to pressure the U.S. into compliance with international human rights treaties.

3. For Immigrant Advocacy Groups and Civil Society

• This is a fight for structural change, not incremental reform: The detention system is cruel by design, not simply “broken.” It is engineered to deter migration, limit due process, and suppress resistance.

• Narratives matter: The rebranding of detention centers with dehumanizing names (”Deportation Depot,” “Cornhuskers Clink”) trivializes the trauma inflicted and must be called out as part of a wider normalization of abuse.

• Resistance works but comes at a cost: Detained individuals who protest, organize, or file grievances are frequently retaliated against via solitary confinement or accelerated deportation.

Lesson: Advocacy must be intersectional, community-rooted, and focused on dismantling—not just mitigating—the architecture of cruelty.

4. For Legal Professionals and Judges

• Due process is an illusion: With no guaranteed legal representation in civil immigration proceedings, and ICE officials holding unchecked discretion over placement, transfer, and detention length, the legal framework is structurally rigged.

• Solitary confinement is not a disciplinary tool—it’s a weapon: Legal review of solitary placements often reveals arbitrary and retaliatory use (e.g., for requesting a shower or reporting abuse).

• ICE’s data is unreliable: ICE systematically underreports or misrepresents its own solitary confinement statistics, frustrating judicial oversight and evidence-based rulings.

Lesson: The judiciary must treat ICE with skepticism, demand independent verification of detention data, and challenge the legality of prolonged civil detention without trial.

5. For Tech Platforms and Media

• Naming and narrative shape public sentiment: Memes and joke names for detention centers normalize systemic abuse and dehumanize real suffering.

• Documenting abuse is not enough—platforming the voices of the detained is essential: Firsthand accounts in Cruel by Design show the power of lived experience to shift discourse and policy.

Lesson: Social media platforms and journalists must move beyond sensationalism and contribute to public understanding of detention as an intentional and racialized form of state violence.

6. For Taxpayers and U.S. Voters

• You are funding this: The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed in July 2025 earmarked $45 billion for ICE through 2029, even as basic services like healthcare, housing, and education face cuts.

• You are being misled: Detention is justified using public safety rhetoric. Yet ICE detains asylum seekers, green card holders, and people with decades of lawful residence—many of whom pose no danger.

Lesson: Public pressure and democratic participation must be mobilized to end taxpayer complicity in human rights violations.

Conclusion: A Worldview of Rising Authoritarianism

The convergence of these reports paints a dystopian picture of the U.S. immigration system as a deliberate apparatus of cruelty. This is not merely a policy failure—it is an ideological project. The detention and deportation machine functions as a laboratory for authoritarian governance, racial control, and legal impunity.

Geopolitical View

What happens in the U.S. does not stay in the U.S. The normalization of mass detention, surveillance, and expulsion has already inspired copycat regimes globally—from the UK’s Rwanda deportation plan to the EU’s externalized border enforcement in Libya and Tunisia. As the U.S. abandons human rights commitments, it destabilizes the global architecture meant to protect them.

U.S. Outlook

The outlook is deeply concerning. With Trump’s second administration dismantling oversight, quadrupling detention budgets, and openly violating international law, the U.S. is rapidly transforming into a state where cruelty is not just tolerated—it is celebrated. Detention centers become campaign props. Solitary confinement becomes normalized. Laws become tools of exclusion.

If unchecked, these policies will not remain limited to immigrants. They are harbingers of what can happen to political dissenters, journalists, and marginalized communities more broadly. The “detention logic”—arrest first, isolate second, silence forever—is spreading.

Final Words

This is cruelty by design. But design can be dismantled.
The system thrives in silence and impunity. It is time for action rooted in truth, law, and solidarity—before the experiment becomes permanent.