• Human Rights in the United States

    The enormous US prison population, the world's largest, partly reflects harsh sentencing practices contrary to international law, such as disproportionately long prison terms and mandatory sentencing without parole. Those behind bars include a growing number of elderly people, whom prisons are ill-equipped to handle, and youth under age 18 held in adult prisons. Unauthorized immigrants and their families in the United States are vulnerable to abuses stemming from an outdated, ineffective immigration system that deprives them of basic rights, and increasing numbers are held in detention facilities. A number of abusive counterterrorism policies have continued under President Barack Obama, including detentions without charge at Guantanamo Bay.

  • Men recently deported from the US wait in line to be registered with Mexican authorities at the border in Nogales, Mexico.
    © 2010 Associated Press
    US: Prosecuting Migrants is Hurting Families
    The skyrocketing criminal prosecutions of migrants for illegally entering or reentering the United States carry huge human and financial costs, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Imprisoning migrants with minor or no criminal records before deporting them often affects people seeking to reunite with their families in the US or fleeing persecution.
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US Domestic Policy

  • Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 18 June
    Jun 18, 2013
  • US: Protect National Security Whistleblowers
    Jun 18, 2013
    The United States should protect people who use classified or other sensitive government information to expose what appear to be serious human rights violations and other government wrongdoing, Human Rights Watch said in a statement released today.
  • US: Statement on Protection of Whistleblowers in Security Sector
    Jun 18, 2013
    The recent public disclosures of US National Security Agency (NSA) dragnet surveillance have given new urgency to an important global debate on what controls are needed to ensure that the rights of people everywhere to privacy, expression, information and association are adequately protected.
  • US/North Carolina: Don't Deter Workers From Reporting Abuses
    Jun 17, 2013
    Human Rights Watch and Student Action with Farmworkers write to voice opposition to Section 1 of the North Carolina Commerce Protection Act of 2013, SB 648, and to express concern that the bill would stifle investigations that expose workplace abuses and deter employees from reporting abuses, including unsafe working conditions.
  • US: Over-Criminalization Task Force Should Examine Federal Sentencing Practices
    Jun 17, 2013
    Human Rights Watch sent this letter to members of the US Congress, regarding the scope of the new Congressional Over-Criminalization Task Force. If the task force is to be effective, it needs to tackle multiple flawed facets of the criminal justice system, including not only overcriminalization but also federal sentencing practices.
  • US/New York: Increase Protections for Farmworkers
    Jun 17, 2013
    With the New York State legislative session scheduled to end on June 20, 2013, Human Rights Watch urges Republican Senate Leader Dean Skelos to schedule a vote on the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act, and further urges the New York State Legislature to pass this important bill.
  • Best Father's Day Gift?
    Jun 16, 2013
    On Father’s Day, we’ll no doubt hear more calls for dads to spend time with their kids. Now it’s time for a national policy on paid family leave to make this feasible.
  • Deported Without Her Children - Alicia’s Story
    Jun 13, 2013
    The women, about a dozen in all, had just finished breakfast at the Tijuana shelter when I arrived. Like many people in Mexican towns on the US border, they had been deported from the United States for not having proper documentation. When I asked them if they had kids living in the United States, most raised their hands and started crying. All these mothers, missing their children, unable to legally return to their families in the United States. I passed around tissues. These days, I always carry tissues with me.
  • Human Rights Watch Daily Brief, 12 June
    Jun 12, 2013
  • US: Urgent Need for Surveillance Reforms
    Jun 11, 2013
    Recent revelations about the scope of US national security surveillance highlight how dramatic increases in private digital communications and government computing power are fueling surveillance practices that impinge on privacy in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. There is an urgent need for the US Congress to reevaluate and rewrite surveillance laws in light of those technological developments and put in place better safeguards against security agency overreach.
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