• An unauthorized immigrant who has lived in the US for 12 years sits with her US citizen grandson in her Mexican restaurant. Alabama’s new immigrant law could prevent her from renewing her business permit when it expires next year.
    © 2011 Grace Meng/Human Rights Watch
    US/Alabama: ‘No Way to Live’ Under Immigrant Law
    Alabama’s new immigrant law denies unauthorized immigrants and their families, including US citizen children, their basic rights, threatening their access to everyday necessities and equal protection of the law.
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  • Unfair Immigration Policies

    While international law permits states to establish immigration policies and deportation procedures, it does not grant them discretion to violate human rights in the process. The United States regularly fails to uphold international human rights law in its immigration laws and enforcement policies, by violating the rights of immigrants to fair treatment at the hands of government, to proportional sanctions, to freedom from arbitrary detention, to respect for the right to family unity, and to protection from return to persecution. Such policies violate the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Refugee Convention, treaties to which the United States is party.

Reports

Unfair Immigration Policies

  • US: U-Visa Provisions in the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act
    Feb 2, 2012
    In anticipation of the Committee’s consideration of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act tomorrow, Human Rights Watch writes to express our strongest support for expanding and improving the protections afforded to immigrant victims of crime by the U-visa.
  • Alabama: An Important Lesson for Presidential Candidates
    Jan 25, 2012
    Most Americans don’t want their country to end up like Alabama. The Republican presidential candidates should heed them, and whoever wins the election this November should work with Congress to do what is in their power: pass smart, humane, and effective immigration reform.
  • US: Alabama's Samaritans Mitigate Strict Law
    Jan 6, 2012
    Well over a third of Alabamians think the state's controversial new immigrant law is unfair, according to a recent poll by Alabama State University. And they are turning their feelings into action. During a recent visit to Alabama, it was clear that many are acting as good Samaritans to mitigate a bad law.
  • US/Alabama: ‘No Way to Live’ Under Immigrant Law
    Dec 14, 2011
    Alabama’s new immigrant law denies unauthorized immigrants and their families, including US citizen children, their basic rights, threatening their access to everyday necessities and equal protection of the law.
  • US: All Immigration Detainees Deserve Protection from Rape
    Dec 7, 2011
    The exclusion of immigration facilities from standards on preventing, detecting, and responding to sexual assault in custody is unjustifiable. It ignores the history of sexual assault in immigration detention and is inconsistent with the intent of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). Human Rights Watch and 38 other organizations urge President Obama to instruct the Department of Justice to cover immigration detention facilities in the final PREA regulations and to instruct the Department of Homeland Security to acknowledge that PREA applies to its facilities.
  • US: Immigrant Injustice
    Oct 7, 2011
    As years go by without any action in Congress to propose realistic and comprehensive legislation to address illegal immigration, the US is creating a large underclass of people who are extremely vulnerable to crime and abuse.
  • US: House Should Reject Indefinite Detention of Immigrants
    Sep 30, 2011
    Human Rights Watch and 18 other organizations sent a letter urging Speaker of the House John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to oppose the “Keep Our Communities Safe Act,” which would create an unconstitutional system of indefinite detention, undermine a century of settled US Supreme Court case-law on immigration detention, and violate international human rights obligations of the US.
  • US: Don't Discriminate Against Minority and Foreign-born Workers
    Sep 15, 2011
    Human Rights Watch is concerned about the Legal Workforce Act and how it may lead to discrimination against minorities and foreign-born US citizens, running afoul of US obligations under US law and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
  • US: Case-By-Case Deportation Review Will Be Fairer
    Aug 19, 2011

    The Obama administration’s decision to suspend deportation proceedings for non-citizens who are not security risks or convicted criminals is an important step to a fairer approach to US immigration enforcement policy.

  • US: Put a Stop to the HALT Act
    Jul 18, 2011
    Current immigration law often disregards the human right to family unity. But a few provisions in U.S. law allow the government to acknowledge the importance of family ties and to use its discretion to prevent unfair results in extraordinary cases. Last week, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced legislation that would eliminate these discretionary powers.
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