• 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.

  • Mario Chavez shares a moment with his wife, Lizeth Chavez, through the border fence at Playas de Tijuana during a weekend family visit. Mario, a US citizen, cannot not leave the US because of parole restrictions, and Lizeth, a Mexican citizen, does not have a visa to go to the United States.
    © 2008 David Maung
    US: Immigration Reform Should Uphold Rights
    The United States government should urgently reform its unfair immigration system to uphold the basic rights of non-citizens and provide a path to legal status for the country’s unauthorized immigrants, Human Rights Watch said in a policy briefing released today. While the Senate and White House proposals are a good start, more attention should be paid to ongoing abuses in enforcement policies.
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    • Deportation and Disability in the US
      Jul 23 2010 - 16:53

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Unfair Immigration Policies

  • US: Immigration Reform Clears Major Hurdle
    Jun 27, 2013
    A landmark immigration reform bill that grants legal status to millions of people and reduces their vulnerability to human rights abuses has passed an important hurdle. The US Senate approved the bill by a vote of 68-32 on the afternoon on June 27, 2013.
  • US: Rulings Invalidate Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Laws
    Jun 26, 2013
    The US Supreme Court’s rulings on June 26, 2013, in two cases – United States v. Windsor and Hollingsworth v. Perry – have invalidated two of the most egregious anti-LGBT initiatives in the country.
  • Immigration reform should protect families
    Jun 21, 2013
    The immigration reform bill now being debated on the floor of the US Senate, while not perfect, would bring millions of undocumented immigrants and their families out of the shadows, and deserves to be passed into law.
  • US: Reject Extreme Immigration Enforcement Bill
    Jun 19, 2013
    The United States House of Representatives should reject an expansive immigration enforcement bill that would worsen existing abuses within the US immigration system. House Resolution (HR) 2278, the Strengthen and Fortify Enforcement Act (or “SAFE Act”), passed the House Judiciary Committee on June 18, 2013.
  • 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/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.
  • 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.
  • Don’t deport all criminal immigrants
    Jun 6, 2013
    Much of the Senate proposal is commendable, but reform to protect families will fall short if it doesn’t address the existing system’s inability to recognize the human capacity for change, or to distinguish between those who truly represent a danger to our communities and those who could instead strengthen them.
  • Q&A: The Senate Immigration Bill
    Jun 3, 2013
    The proposed Senate immigration reform bill (S.744) would make significant changes to the complex array of laws that govern immigration in the US. Some of these changes would address longstanding and serious problems in the immigration system, but some aspects of the bill continue to threaten the rights of immigrants to family unity and due process.
  • Immigration reform needs to help families
    May 24, 2013
    If the US government is genuinely serious about border security, it should reform a barbed-wire policy that splits families to allow people who have been deported to return to their families legally and end prosecutions for minor immigration offenses, so that law enforcement can focus more appropriately on those who are actually a threat to public safety or national security.
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