Reports

The 63-page report, “Living in Fear and Humiliation: Rising Xenophobic Harassment and Violence towards Central Asian Migrants in Russia,” documents that Central Asian migrants, mostly from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan working in Russia face ethnic profiling, arbitrary arrests, and harassment by police and private actors, including far-right nationalist groups. Migrants are also subject to new, often abusive administrative restrictions. Following the attack, Russian officials doubled down, fanning the fire of racist and anti-migrant public sentiments. Russian authorities should condemn any expression of xenophobia, including by their own officials, and work to ensure full compliance with the rights of migrants.

The 135-page report, “‘We Need to Take Away Children’: Zero Accountability Six Years After ‘Zero Tolerance,’” finds that the government refused, in many cases for days or weeks, to disclose the circumstances and whereabouts of separated children to their parents, which meets the definition of an enforced disappearance. Forcible family separations may also have constituted torture, the intentional infliction of severe suffering for an improper purpose by a state agent. Even a single instance of enforced disappearance or torture is a crime under international law.

The 79-page report, “‘Die First, and I’ll Pay You Later’: Saudi Arabia’s ‘Giga-Projects’ Built on Widespread Labor Abuses,” documents widespread abuses against migrant workers, some of which may amount to situations of forced labor, including exorbitant recruitment fees, rampant wage theft, inadequate protections from extreme heat, restrictions on transferring jobs, and uninvestigated worker deaths. Saudi authorities have systematically failed to prevent or remedy these abuses, including at high-profile projects financed by its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF).

The 40-page report, “‘It Felt Like Everything in Life Stopped’: Legal Capacity Rights Violations Against People with Disabilities in Canada’s Immigration Detention System,” documents how the country’s use of designated representatives undermines the rights of immigration detainees with disabilities to make their own decisions, often with life-altering or even life-endangering consequences. Designated representatives are appointed by the Immigration and Refugee Board when it deems that a detained person is “unable to appreciate the nature of the proceedings.”

The 154-page report, “‘Hopeless, Starving, and Besieged’: Israel’s Forced Displacement of Palestinians in Gaza,” examines how Israeli authorities’ conduct has led to the displacement of over 90 percent of the population of Gaza—1.9 million Palestinians—and the widespread destruction of much of Gaza over the last 13 months. Israeli forces have carried out deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure, including in areas where they have apparent aims of creating “buffer zones” and security “corridors,” from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced. Contrary to claims by Israeli officials, their actions do not comply with the laws of war.

The 70-page report, “‘It’s Like I live in a Cage’: Turkmen Authorities’ Denial of Passports to Turkmen Citizens in Türkiye,” describes Turkmenistan’s refusal to renew passports outside of the country as part of the government’s broader effort to severely restrict freedom of movement within its wider system of repression. The groups documented the hardships and interference with rights that Turkmen migrants in Türkiye experience in their daily lives when they become undocumented as a result of Turkmen authorities refusing to provide passport renewal services. Those who openly criticize or in the past have criticized the Turkmen government are at serious risk of deportation to Turkmenistan, where they face extreme repression, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, and risk of torture.

The 90-page report, “‘I Can’t Go Home, Stay Here, or Leave’: Pushbacks and Pullbacks of Syrian Refugees from Cyprus and Lebanon,” documents why Syrian refugees in Lebanon are desperate to leave and try to reach Europe; and how the Lebanese army has intercepted, pulled them back, and summarily expelled them to Syria. In tandem, the Cypriot Coast Guard and other Cypriot security forces have sent Syrians whose boats reached Cyprus back to Lebanon, without regard to their refugee status or risk of being expelled to Syria. Many of those sent back to Lebanon by Cyprus were immediately expelled to Syria by the Lebanese army.

The 91-page report, “Disrupt and Vilify,” shows that the failure to reform disproportionately harsh federal immigration law has resulted in enormous numbers of deportations, splitting families apart, disrupting communities, and destabilizing people well-established in the US. For example, federal immigration law that treats some types of marijuana use as a deportable offense is at odds with many states’ recreational marijuana laws, penalizing immigrants and non-citizens for activities that are legal for citizens at the state level. The groups found that 500,000 people whose most serious offense was for drugs were deported between 2002 and 2020.

The 68-page report, “We Couldn’t Wait: Digital Metering at the US-Mexico Border,” details how the Biden and López Obrador administrations have made a difficult-to-use US government mobile application, CBP One, all but mandatory for people seeking asylum in the United States. The result is de facto “metering,” a practice formalized early in the Trump administration that limits the number of asylum seekers processed at ports of entry each day, turning others back to Mexico.

The 110-page report, “Neglected in the Jungle: Inadequate Protection and Assistance for Migrants and Asylum Seekers Crossing the Darién Gap,” is the second in a series of Human Rights Watch reports on migration via the Darién Gap. Human Rights Watch identified specific shortcomings in Colombia’s and Panama’s efforts to protect and assist people – including those at higher risk, such as unaccompanied children – as well as to investigate abuses against them.

The 60-page report, “‘We Can’t See the Sun’: Malaysia’s Arbitrary Detention of Migrants and Refugees,” documents Malaysian authorities’ punitive and abusive treatment of migrants and refugees in 20 immigration detention centers across the country. Immigration detainees can spend months or years in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, subject to harassment and violence by guards, without domestic or international monitoring.

The 70-page report, “‘Not the France I Imagined’: Housing, Health, and Education for Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Marseille,” finds that Marseille’s child protection authorities are leaving children with health needs on the street without treatment, psychosocial support, or follow-up care. Half of unaccompanied migrant children who face an age assessment in Marseille are denied formal recognition as a child, yet those decisions are overturned for nearly 75 percent of those who file an appeal. Review by the courts can take months or even years, leaving children ineligible for emergency accommodation and services such as legal assistance, the appointment of a guardian, universal health protection, and education.

The 76-page report, “So Much Blood on the Ground: Dangerous and Deadly Vehicle Pursuits under Texas’ Operation Lone Star,” documents the spike in vehicle chases by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and local law enforcement in the 60 most heavily affected Texas counties implementing Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star program. Records reveal that in several counties, unnecessary vehicle chases have increased by over 1,000 percent since the program began. Human Rights Watch found that residents in these counties are disproportionately affected by law enforcement vehicle pursuits and crashes.