Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is a serious human rights problem in the United States that intersects with all of the US domestic issues covered by Human Rights Watch—from over-incarceration of Black and Latinx people fueled by the disproportionately harsh sentences meted out for all categories of crime, including violent offenses, to the failed War on Drugs, to prosecution and bail policies that coerce people into guilty pleas, to surveillance of specific groups, such as Muslims or political activists from other ethnic or religious minorities, to immigration policies that scapegoat immigrants as criminals, or subject asylum seekers and refugees to disparate treatment based on their national origin. Human Rights Watch documents, investigates, and analyzes human rights abuses involving racial discrimination in “purpose or effect,” meaning violations that result in racial disparities even without intent to discriminate, and we advocate for the US to meet its international human rights obligation to end all forms of racial discrimination.