100 Human Rights Harms in 100 Days
The Trump Administration’s Assault on Rights in the United States and Abroad
To mark the first 100 days of President Trump's second term, Human Rights Watch has cataloged 100 of the administration’s executive policies, orders, and actions that pose significant risks to the human rights of people living in the United States and around the world. In some cases, these rights-abusive policies are moving ahead, and in other cases they are being reviewed, curtailed, or stopped by courts. In many cases, they are being resisted by ordinary people inside and outside the US. The deep and lasting harm to human rights has yet to be fully understood; therefore, this list is not comprehensive but instead offers a snapshot of the implications of the administration’s actions on people’s lives in its first 100 days.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
1.
People fearing persecution in their home countries are being prevented from accessing asylum procedures in violation of international refugee law. An administration executive order, “Protecting American People Against Invasion,” claimed the US faces an “invasion” by non-citizens that gives US officials authority to withdraw access to asylum until the alleged “invasion” ends.
Non-Discrimination
2.
People with disabilities will face significant challenges from the administration’s termination of federal programs mandating accessibility, which are crucial for ensuring equal opportunity for many people with disabilities. The Justice Department also rescinded 11 non-binding guidance documents related to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which provided businesses with recommendations on accessible parking, hotel accommodations, and retail disability access. Disability rights advocates fear this will lead to decreased ADA compliance and increased accessibility barriers.
Labor Rights
3.
Working people in the US and around the world have less support for advancing and defending labor rights after the administration rescinded a Biden-era presidential memorandum called “Advancing Worker Empowerment, Rights, and High Labor Standards Globally.”
Health
4.
Trans youth could lose access to gender-affirming care under an executive order instructing federal agencies to ensure that medical institutions receiving federal funding for education and research, including hospitals and medical schools, cease provision of such care for youth under age 19. The order, which also directs agencies to eliminate access to such care through federal healthcare programs (TRICARE, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program), is currently blocked by a temporary restraining order.
Health
5.
Public health and safety are at risk as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services is seeking to fire 10,000 employees of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention –over 20 percent of their total staff.
Accountability and Transparency
6.
Administration officials’ use of the messaging app Signal to conduct of official business – which became known from a discussion regarding a bombing raid in Yemen – has raised concerns that officials may be using Signal to sidestep federal laws meant to preserve government records and review of their communications under the Freedom of Information Act.
Access to Information
7.
People will face new obstacles to accessing historical information, particularly on troubling aspects of US history, after the administration acted to censor content at federal museums, including the country’s premier Smithsonian institution.
Multilateral Organizations and Agreements
8.
Millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the region who urgently need humanitarian aid are at greater risk after the administration’s executive order prohibiting US funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
US Weapons Transfers and Civilian Harm
9.
People living in places where the US sends security assistance will be at increased risk of abuses after the administration rescinded National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20), which aimed to prevent US weapons from facilitating or contributing to violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
Health
10.
Children, adults, and whole families may find it more difficult to feed themselves as the administration eliminated over $1 billion in food assistance for school lunches and food banks in food insecure school districts and communities across the US. The impact is exemplified by the cut of deliveries to foodbanks in places such as Ohio, Michigan, Nevada, and California.
Access to Information
11.
Pupils and students in kindergarten through grade 12 will have less access to accurate educational curricula and their teachers will experience a chilling effect on their ability to teach due to an executive order threatening schools and school systems with loss of federal funds for mentioning racial or ethnic discrimination, or for recognition of gender identity.
Reproductive Freedom
12.
Millions of people around the world will find it more challenging to access contraception, maternal health care, and other health services following cuts to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) , as well as the reinstatement of the “Mexico City Policy” which bars nongovernmental organizations outside the US from receiving US funding if they offer abortion care or information about abortion. Access to these services could also be affected by the administration’s commitment to again join the anti-abortion “Geneva Consensus Declaration.”
Health
13.
Families needing housing assistance are likely to struggle even more to keep their homes after the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) terminated grant funds under the Fair Housing Initiative Program.
Accountability and Transparency
14.
The judicial branch has been undermined by administration efforts to publicly attack, ridicule, and defy individual judges who issued adverse rulings in cases challenging administration actions. For example, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Tom Homan stated he did not care about a judge’s orders seeking to block the deportations of Venezuelans to El Salvador. Trump publicly denied the same judge’s authority and called for his impeachment.
Non-Discrimination
15.
Members of the US military will no longer benefit from the military’s use of DEI programs to ensure excellence and protect service members’ constitutional and human rights, with the administration’s elimination of such programs.
Ability to Seek Remedies and Justice When Harmed
16.
Federal workers and users of public services face new challenges due to the US of AI capabilities by DOGE personnel to execute sweeping cuts to federal agencies. In addition to privacy, non-discrimination, and other rights concerns, using opaque algorithms to make significant changes to public services creates barriers to accountability and remedies for any resulting harms. Additionally, commercial AI systems could be trained on sensitive government data.
Law Enforcement Accountability and Criminal Sentencing
17.
Department of Justice efforts to ensure rights-respecting policing in cities throughout the country have been undercut by the administration’s suspension of civil rights investigations and indications it will also eliminate use of consent decrees, court-monitored processes for police reforms.
US Weapons Transfers and Civilian Harm
18.
Civilians are less likely to be protected from US military operations, and those harmed are less likely to receive recognition or redress, in the wake of the administration’s reported plans to dismantle offices and programs focused on preventing, mitigating, and responding to civilian harm, including the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence (COE).
Ability to Seek Remedies and Justice When Harmed
19.
People who are victims of predatory financial crimes, particularly from big financial interests, will have fewer avenues for redress if the administration succeeds in dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an oversight agency created to protect the public from fraud by the finance industry.
Ignoring Rules Against Return to Harm
20.
Haitian immigrants in the US, some with legal status, have been put in removal proceedings and deported to Haiti. The removals continue despite the deteriorating security situation in the country, including frequent attacks from criminal groups.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
21.
The administration has sought to shorten, not renew or end, Temporary Protected Status for nationals of specified countries. This status had been provided to those who could not return safely home due to ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary and temporary conditions. Those affected include people from Venezuela, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, Myanmar, Nepal, Syria, Yemen, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Cameroon, and Afghanistan.
Access to Justice
22.
Immigrant children who have traveled without immediate family members now face daunting and often abusive immigration detention and deportation proceedings without access to lawyers after the administration terminated funding for a Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement program that provided legal representation services.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
23.
Hundreds of independent organizations in Venezuela must now go underground, relocate abroad, or shut down altogether following the US administration’s rollback of foreign aid and the Maduro administration’s repressive new NGO Oversight Law.
Ignoring Rules Against Return to Harm
24.
Immigrants in the US have reason to fear unfair deportations to places where they face real risks of persecution, torture, and other harms. Without affording any due process, the administration arrested and summarily deported 137 Venezuelan nationals under the Alien Enemies Act, an archaic 1798 statute that has not been used since World War II. The Venezuelans were flown to El Salvador and incarcerated—arbitrarily, indefinitely, and incommunicado—in a notorious prison in San Salvador. People held in the prison, called the Center for Containment of Terrorism (CECOT), are at risk of torture and other ill treatment.
Free Speech
25.
International students and scholars have been arbitrarily arrested and ordered deported in retaliation for their political viewpoints and activism related to Palestine, using illegitimate and false justifications. The administration reportedly is scouring social media platforms, supposedly to identify students who have expressed support for Hamas, and has revoked hundreds of student visas. In addition to the impact on targeted individuals, the actions have chilled political speech more broadly.
Access to Information
26.
Parents who are immigrants may be afraid to send their children to US schools because of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decision to rescind a previous policy barring immigration agents from raiding churches, mosques, schools, and hospitals.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
27.
Millions of people who live with HIV and AIDS have had their access to treatments undermined or eliminated, and millions of others are at greater risk of HIV infection following the suspension of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provides funding for HIV treatment, prevention, and research. UNAIDS estimates 8.7 million more people will become infected with HIV because of US aid cuts.
Health
28.
Public health departments around the country will likely face greater difficulties addressing measles and avian flu outbreaks, seasonal public health concerns like influenza, and the transmission of communicable diseases like HIV amid mass disruptions at federal agencies vital for monitoring and responding to public health concerns.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
Ignoring Rules Against Return to Harm
30.
People in the US who are originally from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and who have a legal status called “parole” suddenly learned their status would end and they could be placed in expedited removal proceedings because of an executive order, “Securing Our Borders.”
Environmental Human Rights
31.
People living in public housing will face increased challenges from climate change due to the administration pulling $1.4 billion in funding allocated to make affordable housing across the country more energy efficient and climate resilient.
Reproductive Freedom
32.
Young people, people living on low incomes, and people of color may find it harder to access abortion care within the US due to renewed enforcement of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion care.
Environmental Human Rights
33.
As part of government-wide staff cuts instigated by the executive’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), more than 400 staff were dismissed from the Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, including from its Office of Law Enforcement, damaging the agency’s ability to enforce legislation banning import of illegally felled timber. Weaker enforcement of the law will harm Indigenous peoples and forest-dependent communities around the world.
Labor Rights
34.
Workers in 40 countries may experience increased exploitation and abuse after the administration cancelled all grants awarded through the US Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB). The grants fund congressionally authorized programs to strengthen global labor standards, enforce labor commitments under US trade agreements, and fight child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.
Accountability and Transparency
35.
Journalists, activists, and concerned citizens will be less able to access information held by the federal government because the administration has fired Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officers across government agencies.
Non-Discrimination
36.
Women, LGBT people, and people of color face more discrimination and fewer rights protections following an executive order on “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” The order terminated all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, programs, and activities in the federal government, all US government agency websites and content pertaining to DEI have been erased. Many private sector employers and state entities have responded by rolling back DEI policies, eliminating workplace protections for employees.
Social Protection
37.
The Social Security Administration’s reinstatement of an overpayment “claw back” fee of 100 percent of monthly entitlements threatens to leave many older people and people with disabilities without enough money for food or rent.
Non-Discrimination
38.
Federal government contract workers have lost key protections from discrimination based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and national origin after Trump rescinded the Equal Employment Opportunity executive order dating back to the Civil Rights Era in the 1960’s.
Environmental Human Rights
39.
US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the international climate change treaty, and its emission reduction commitments will contribute to the acceleration of global climate change, which could adversely affect millions of people – especially given that the US is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Access to Information
40.
Native Americans who benefited from reforms under Biden-era Executive Order 14112 on funding to tribes now face less autonomy, and delayed and possibly reduced support for health education and other programs after the administration rescinded the order. A separate administration decision to impose layoffs at the Bureau of Indian Education could also impact the quality of education available to some Native children.
Accountability and Transparency
41.
People are at risk that federal agencies will not abide by the law because the administration fired 17 inspectors general – who monitor federal agencies and their leadership for waste, fraud, and other misconduct – without following mandated requirements.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
42.
Human rights defenders under immediate threat of violence and persecution are at greater risk after the administration cut funding to the Lifeline Embattled CSO Assistance Fund, which provides emergency grants to organizations and individuals.
Multilateral Organizations and Agreements
43.
People world-wide who depend on the monitoring and coordination of national responses to global health threats, as well as the creation of new standards to improve health systems, are jeopardized by the administration’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization, an already underfunded institution that seeks to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics.
Access to Information
44.
Many children and their families face new concerns about equal access to education after an administration executive order directing a near-complete shutdown of the Department of Education , which has sought to end discrimination and inequality in education. Proposed Education Department changes include closure of the National Center for Education Statistics, which determines funding allocations to high-poverty and rural schools.
Law Enforcement Accountability and Criminal Sentencing
45.
More people in the US are likely to face the death penalty—a uniquely cruel punishment inevitably marked by discrimination, arbitrariness, and error—following an executive directive calling on prosecutors to bring “capital charges for all capital crimes.”
Free Speech
46.
US-funded news services, including Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe, were eliminated as part of the administration’s termination of the US Agency for Global Media and Voice of America, affecting over 1300 foreign and US journalists. Millions of people worldwide will have less information on political and other developments in scores of countries.
Health
47.
Older people and people with disabilities who rely on the Administration for Community Living for programs like Meals on Wheels, are concerned they will face cuts in food assistance as a result of workforce reductions within the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Privacy
48.
Sensitive information of US taxpayers and people in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) databases is available to ICE and DHS officials as part of the administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.
Environmental Human Rights
49.
The EPA's announced “biggest deregulatory action,” if fully implemented, will weaken key regulations on the fossil fuel industry, including toxic pollutant releases into air and water, negatively affecting the health and livelihoods of nearby communities and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The administration has already issued an official statement granting certain coal plants permission to bypass EPA regulations on toxic pollutants.
Labor Rights
50.
Millions of workers, including miners, meatpackers, firefighters, and child farmworkers, are at greater risk of workplace injury, illness, and death after the Department of Health and Human Services cut staffing by two-thirds at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an agency primarily responsible for enforcing workplace safety standards.
Voting Rights
51.
People in the United States risk seeing their democratic power weakened by a politically motivated effort to skew long-standing US Census Bureau policies and methods aimed at ensuring accurate population counts that determine how presidents, members of Congress, and others are elected and how federal funding is allocated to states and localities.
Law Enforcement Accountability and Criminal Sentencing
52.
US citizens convicted of crimes have been threatened by US President Trump with unprecedented and rights-violating incarceration in El Salvador’s prisons, notorious for incarcerating people arbitrarily in inhumane conditions, with lack of access to counsel and family members, rampant violence, and torture.
Free Speech
53.
US government workers face new censorship pressures after certain words and terms were limited or banned from use by the US government, with agencies reportedly identifying hundreds of words, including many related to basic human rights such as “equality” and “racism.”
Health
54.
People relying on public and private health insurance acquired through the Affordable Care Act’s government-operated marketplace to pay for their health care may now find it harder to get and maintain coverage. Enrollment periods have been shortened and funding to make the platform more accessible has been cut.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
55.
People in Colombia, Laos, Sudan, and other countries contaminated by landmines and cluster munitions are in more danger following US foreign aid cuts that ended or disrupted mine clearance operations. Thousands of deminers were fired or put on administrative leave.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
56.
The health and livelihoods of war-affected communities in Ukraine are at greater risk because cuts in US foreign aid have halted US-funded reconstruction to damaged civilian infrastructure. Many programs focused on strengthening Ukraine’s democracy have also been cut.
Non-Discrimination
57.
Federal staff working to counter racial discrimination and ensure equal treatment in “diversity, equity, and inclusion roles” were placed on paid leave, weakening enforcement of relevant laws and policies.
Access to Justice
58.
A series of executive orders targeting prominent law firms, widely perceived as retribution for those firms' involvement in cases against Trump, threatens access to justice in cases involving administration policies and practices.
Free Speech
59.
Hundreds of thousands of independent organizations in the US non-profit civil society sector may face constraints on their work to help those in need and advocate for policy reforms if the administration continues to leverage the cancellation of federal grants to pressure and curtail these organizations’ programmatic independence, following a pattern already applied by the administration to the non-profit, non-partisan organizations Vera Institute for Justice and Estrella del Paso, among others.
Free Speech
60.
Activists, civil society organizations, and others who attend protests or hold views critical of the administration may face increased social media monitoring and surveillance by federal authorities.
Non-Discrimination
61.
Transgender and nonbinary individuals were stripped of federal recognition by an executive order on “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The administration now only recognizes male and female sexes, and will not take gender identity into account. Among other consequences, transgender people in federal custody will be housed according to their sex assigned at birth, putting them at risk of physical and sexual violence.
Voting Rights
62.
Citizens’ voting rights are imperiled by an executive order on elections, that seeks to impose new documentary requirements for voter registration, sets needlessly restrictive deadlines for mail-in ballots, and gives intrusive authority to DOGE personnel to check voter registration “for consistency with federal requirements.”
Environmental Human Rights
63.
An announced 65 percent cut to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget, if implemented, will undermine the agency’s ability to carry out essential monitoring and enforcement activities. It would also drastically reduce EPA funding allocated to states for environmental programs.
Victims/Survivors’ Right to Remedies for Grave International Crimes
64.
Survivors and families of people who were victims of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide will experience new impediments to justice after the administration targeted the International Criminal Court (ICC) under an executive order that authorizes asset freezes and entry bans on ICC officials and others supporting the court’s work.
Ignoring Rules Against Return to Harm
65.
Dozens of people from Venezuela have been placed in expedited removal proceedings and deported to face abusive treatment and conditions at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they have limited access to legal counsel and their families. Many had fled Venezuela due to dire humanitarian and human rights conditions, and some had Temporary Protected Status, allowing them to stay in the US. Some have since been sent on from Guantanamo to Venezuela.
US Support for Human Rights Abroad
66.
Embattled human rights defenders around the world will be undermined by sharply reduced coverage of specific human rights issues, including prison conditions, rights of women and LGBT people, and elections in the annual State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, because of a reported administration decision.
Non-Discrimination
67.
People in the US and abroad are more likely to be subjected to biased and discriminatory artificial intelligence (AI) systems after the administration revoked a Biden-era executive order as well as policies that sought fair and accountable AI systems. The administration directed all federal agencies and partners to remove considerations of “fairness,” “safety,” and “responsibility” in training and deploying AI, and is reportedly ramping up its use of AI to identify spending cuts and identify students for deportation.
Health
68.
Native Americans who benefited from new efficiencies in the distribution of funds to support their health and education may experience delayed or reduced health and education programs after the administration rescindedthe Biden-era Executive Order 14112 on 'Reforming Federal Funding and Support for Tribal Nations To Better Embrace Our Trust Responsibilities and Promote the Next Era of Tribal Self-Determination.”
Social Protection
69.
Nearly 69 million people in the US receiving social security benefits, including older people and people with disabilities, may experience disruptions and potentially dangerous delays in receipt of benefits due to sweeping cuts and rushed attempts to re-code data at the Social Security Administration.
Free Speech
70.
Cuts to US funding have eliminated support for secure digital communications relied on by journalists, human rights defenders, and dissidents working on authoritarian countries putting them at further risk of repression and reprisal.
Accountability and Transparency
71.
People are at great risk of unlawful treatment because the administration stripped the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of its staff. It reduced staffing at the DHS' immigration detention ombudsman's office and the ombudsman of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which have played key roles in accountability for abuses by ICE and Customs and Border Protection.
Health
72.
The development of new medicines will be significantly hampered by the administration’s decision to pause grants from the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
73.
US citizens and others in the US whose relatives have been denied resettlement by the “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program” executive order now have no realistic prospect of being united with their families.
Law Enforcement Accountability and Criminal Sentencing
74.
People mistreated by police officers have even fewer places to turn to report misconduct after the administration rescinded a Biden-era executive order that mandated a national federal register of police officer misconduct and violence, designed to prevent police departments from rehiring abusive officers.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
75.
People carefully screened by the UN and the US for refugee resettlement because they are unsafe, not only in their home countries but also in the regions to which they fled, will no longer be allowed to access resettlement in the United States because of an executive order, “Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program.”The order indefinitely suspends the US refugee admissions program, claiming that admitting refugees is “detrimental” to US national interests. A later order made a single exception—for white Afrikaners from South Africa. This action means 125,000 refugees already authorized to come to the US have been abandoned.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
76.
Over 900,000 people who entered the US legally since January 2023 after making an immigration appointment – often to present asylum claims – using an app called CBP One, have been told to leave the US immediately. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has repurposed the app and replaced the appointment scheduling feature with a “self deport” function.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
77.
Women in Afghanistan pursuing a college degree either through online courses suspended and potentially permanently terminated or through a scholarship program funded by USAID have had their education disrupted. These programs were the only ways women could receive a degree because the Taliban bans university education for women. The administration also terminated funding for other programs in Afghanistan supporting women’s empowerment and education.
Accountability and Transparency
78.
Historically independent agencies created by Congress to serve the public interest —including the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—now have to submit their regulations to the White House for review and coordinate legal positions with the administration, impinging on their autonomy in ways that could jeopardize rights.
Ability to Seek Remedies and Justice When Harmed
79.
The independence and integrity of the US Department of Justice to ensure remedies for violations of US law is weaker following Attorney General Pam Bondi’s instruction to Justice Department attorneys to “zealously defend the interests of the United States” exclusively as defined by the president. She also directed prosecutors to focus on Trump's “priorities,” with a chief priority being the prosecution of officials who have opposed or participated in legal action against him.
Access to Information
80.
Students and their families suffering from discrimination at school now have fewer protections after the administration paused active Office of Civil Rights investigations. Instead, the administration is using civil rights laws, originally intended to protect Black and Latino students, to carry out new “reverse discrimination” investigations at odds with the purpose of those legal protections.
Rights of Immigrants
81.
Immigrants living in the US will further fear and fail to report when they are victims of crimes to law enforcement due to a DHS decision to authorize federal agencies and other law enforcement bodies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the US Marshals Service, to investigate, determine the location of, and apprehend undocumented migrants. DHS has also deputized State Department agents to enforce federal immigration laws; the Internal Revenue Service is also assisting. The administration has also sought to authorize US military involvement in immigration, including by troops now deployed along the US-Mexico border. A related White House executive order, “Protecting American People Against Invasion,” calls for increased use of state and local police “to the maximum extent permitted by law…to perform the functions of immigration officers.” Since the roll-out of these various policies, at least two US citizens, one in Florida and another in Arizona, have been improperly detained.
Reproductive Freedom
82.
US military members will no longer receive travel reimbursement and leave benefits to cross US state lines for abortion care, making it harder for service members in states with restrictive abortion policies to get the care they need.
Non-Discrimination
83.
LGBT people living outside the US now have less support after Trump rescinded a Biden-era executive order that aimed to combat discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity abroad.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
84.
People attempting to access asylum in the US at the Mexican border can expect to wait for months or years in Mexico in dangerous conditions due to the planned resumption of the so-called “Remain in Mexico” program under the recent “Securing Our Borders” executive order. The administration has suspended by executive orderentry for anyone deemed to pose a public health risk, without specifying the risk.
Non-Discrimination
85.
People of color in the US may find it harder to get credit on an equal basis with others after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau urged a court to undo a settlement with Townstone Financial on racial discrimination in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
86.
People – especially in in Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, and Yemen – are more likely to face starvation after elimination of the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS.Net), a US-funded system to monitor food insecurity and risk of famine. Additionally, many lifesaving US food aid programs are being terminated. In Sudan, Emergency Response Rooms, a network of emergency food kitchens, had to drastically reduce operations following cuts in the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Access to food and nutrition assistance is further limited in Haiti, where the US previously provided about 60 percent of the country’s humanitarian aid last year.
Rights of Immigrants
87.
Immigrants have been forced into rapid-fire deportation procedures under a nationwide expansion of “expedited removal.” A new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rule and related memo strictly limit immigrants’ access to lawyers and judicial review, and give them almost no time to defend their cases. Asylum seekers in expedited removal are prevented from accessing “credible fear” interviews and seeking asylum if it would permit their continued presence in the US.
Preventing Access to Asylum, Refugee, and Protected Status
88.
Hundreds of asylum seekers, including families with children, who are from Afghanistan, Cameroon, China,Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and other countries with poor human rights records, have been prevented by US Customs and Border Protection officials from accessing asylum procedures. Then they were arrested, detained, and summarily deported to Costa Rica and Panama. In Panama, the asylum seekers have been denied their rights and detained in abusive conditions, causing many to “voluntarily” return to their home countries.
US Foreign Aid Freeze and Cuts
89.
People in authoritarian countries will have less access to free and independent reporting due to cuts in US foreign aid that provided financial support, training, and protection to independent media. In several closed countries such as Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia, Cambodia, and Myanmar, independent media outlets in exile have had to reduce staff, limit reporting, and end training programs.
Ignoring Rules Against Return to Harm
90.
Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia was returned to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting his return in what the administration acknowledged as an error. The administration has made no effort to remedy this.
Environmental Human Rights
91.
The EPA’s decision to close its environmental justice offices and programming will gut its ability to address environmental harms disproportionately concentrated within Black, poor, and minority communities, including elevated rates of and risks to maternal, reproductive, and newborn health, as well as cancer and respiratory ailments.
US Weapons Transfers and Civilian Harm
92.
Civilians in conflict zones are at increased risk of US weapons being used to carry out laws-of-war violations after the administration rescinded the US Conventional Arms Transfer policy, which prohibited US arms transfers to governments assessed to be “more likely than not” to use the weapons to commit certain abuses.
Health
93.
Immigrants and their families, including domestic violence survivors, may now justifiably fear entering hospitals and clinics because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) rescinded a previous policy barring immigration agents from raiding churches, mosques, schools, and hospitals.
Reproductive Freedom
94.
Pregnant women, girls, and other pregnant people in Idaho are more likely to suffer and die after the Justice Department abandoned a lawsuit brought by the Biden administration to ensure that healthcare providers in Idaho, a state with a total abortion ban, offer lifesaving abortion care in emergencies.
Access to Justice
95.
Immigrants in detention will have less access to information on representing themselves or finding an attorney after the administration halted funding for “know your rights” programs.
Privacy
96.
Everyone whose personal data is included in any US government database faces violations of privacy rightsstemming from administration actions. DOGE has gained access to sensitive personal data held by dozens of government agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, Department of Education, and Treasury Department. The administration issued an executive order that aims to facilitate the extensive sharing of people’s sensitive personal data between government agencies.
Health
97.
Millions of people in the US may experience new impediments to receiving Medicaid benefits, food assistance, childcare, and other services benefits due to the administration’s decision to eliminate federal staff involved in setting eligibility standards for health programs.
Free Speech
98.
The Associated Press was banned from White House briefings over its refusal to adopt the administration’s nomenclature change on the Gulf of Mexico, indicating an administration willingness to punish news outlets for editorial decisions.
Environmental Human Rights
99.
People in the US and around the world are likely to experience new obstacles to their enjoyment of a healthy environment, clean water, and clean air due to the administration’s decision to incentivize increased fossil fuel production through an executive order and to freeze funding under the Inflation Reduction Act for some renewable energy projects.
Accountability and Transparency
100.
People will be less able to access information about themselves, their communities, or issues relevant to them because the federal government has removed thousands of government webpages and datasets, such as demographic health surveys, AIDS information pages, surveillance dashboards, data on racial disparities, and social vulnerability and environmental justice indices.