A new report detailing unjust conditions in detention centers in the U.S. and European Union shows an increase in harsher policies that limit rights and asylum in many parts of the world.

More governments are resorting to incarceration to manage migration in addition to policies that “diminish humanitarian protections,” militarize borders and restrict access to asylum, according to the report — released in July by the UCLA School of Law’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) and European human rights organization Equal Rights Beyond Borders.

“People on the move have always been a part of human history. We must take a transnational approach to assess how governments treat people who come to their borders seeking safety so that we can see patterns and propose more humane solutions,” said Hiroshi Motomura, the Faculty Co-Director of CLIP, in a statement.

The report focuses on the U.S. and EU as “leading destinations” for migrants and refugees and because of these areas’ reputation for upholding human rights.

Researchers said U.S. law treats immigration detention as a default, whereas the EU determines it to be a last resort. They found that both systems, however, violated human dignity and failed to comply with national and international obligations.

Immigration detention centers in the U.S. and EU are similar to prison facilities, subject migrants to abusive and poor living conditions and provide insufficient medical care, according to researchers. Lack of accountability everywhere prevents enforcement of the protections that do exist.

Centers harm people’s well-being and may deter people from seeking asylum. Proponents believe detention ensures immigrants comply with court requirements but researchers said these justifications are unfounded. They found that 99 percent of people with access to case management services complied with mandatory check-ins.

The U.S. and EU both have large asylum backlogs, with more than 750,000 cases pending in U.S. immigration courts and 899,000 in the EU Researchers said these backlogs extend proceedings and prolong detention for people awaiting decisions. The U.S. detains migrants for an average of 3.7 months, while asylum applicants were detained an average of eight months in the EU between 2008 and 2020.

Unlike the U.S., migrants cannot be detained because they seek asylum in the EU, researchers said. In the EU, governments must conduct individual determinations for each person to determine if detention is necessary or if there are less restrictive alternatives.

These same laws do not exist in the American legal system and migrants in detention or in immigration proceedings are not provided lawyers. Studies have shown that detained immigrants are seven times more likely to be released from custody if they have legal counsel, but nearly 70 percent are without representation.

“Despite variations in legal frameworks and political contexts, the lived experiences of migrants seeking protection in the U.S. and EU are strikingly similar,” said Talia Inlender, the Deputy Director of CLIP.

Researchers said the U.S. is viewed as a “global pioneer” of the immigration detention system, which they said the country began consistently using in the 1980s to deter the arrival of Haitian migrants fleeing political upheaval. The U.S. operates the world’s largest system, with more than 400 short-term holding facilities detaining hundreds of thousands of people each year.

According to the report, as of 2023, more than 90 percent of people in ICE custody were held in privately-run detention centers. These facilities generated billions of dollars in contracts for the agency.

Barring the complete elimination of immigration detention centers, researchers proposed other solutions — including limiting the use of these centers — to provide migrants with more human dignity during these legal proceedings. The report also called for detained people to have access to legal and interpretive services and to end the use of privately-run and for-profit facilities.