The Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2026 World Report’s section on the United States portrays Trump’s second administration as a period of sweeping democratic erosion and systematic rights violations across nearly every major policy domain. From its opening days, the administration has dismantled civil rights protections, intensified immigration crackdowns, weakened democratic institutions, and withdrawn the US from global human rights leadership. The report argues that these actions collectively represent a historic regression in US rights protections and a decisive turn toward authoritarian governance.
The HRW report, which annually tracks human rights across the globe, opens by stating that Trump’s second term has been marked by “blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations.” On his first day in office, Trump eliminated all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, triggering a cascade of executive actions that have dismantled civil rights enforcement across federal agencies. The administration has also restructured refugee resettlement to overwhelmingly benefit white South Africans, while simultaneously erasing or downplaying the history of racial injustice in the US. At the same time, it has removed civil rights mechanisms, undermined efforts to address the legacy of slavery, and attempted to suppress the teaching of Black history.
Immigration enforcement has intensified dramatically. ICE and other federal agencies have carried out hundreds of violent raids in homes, workplaces, schools, hospitals, and places of worship. The report describes these operations as “unnecessarily violent and abusive,” noting that many are conducted by masked agents. The administration has revoked protections for “sensitive locations,” allowing authorities to carry out arrests in places previously considered off‑limits. It also used the Alien Enemies Act to secretly expel 252 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran maximum‑security prison, where they were tortured before being transferred to Venezuela. Courts have intervened in some cases, blocking the deportation of unaccompanied children and challenging transfers that violate due process and non‑refoulement obligations.
The administration has also deployed National Guard troops to cities led by Democratic mayors, despite falling crime rates. These deployments, framed as responses to “insurrection,” are widely viewed as political shows of force. Protests in Los Angeles, Chicago, and other cities were met with violent crackdowns by federal agents and local police. The report argues that these actions, combined with racial scapegoating and retaliation against critics, reflect a broader effort to “expand the coercive powers of the executive and neuter democratic checks and balances.”
Voting rights have similarly come under sustained attack. The administration has attempted to impose proof‑of‑citizenship requirements, shorten mail‑in ballot deadlines, and restrict ballot‑error corrections. House Republicans have advanced the SAVE Act, which includes mandatory documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration. Although courts have blocked some measures, the report warns that similar efforts are expected to return ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Civil society and oversight institutions are also in the crosshairs. The administration has cut university research funding over ideological disputes, restricted government access to certain law firms, threatened the tax‑exempt status of NGOs, and politicized federal agencies by purging independent officials. These moves have weakened the institutional checks that traditionally constrain executive power.
The criminal legal system has seen intensified punitive measures. The administration has sought to increase pretrial incarceration, expand the death penalty in Washington, DC, and drop prosecutions of political allies while targeting perceived opponents. Around the country, police killed an estimated 1,301 people in 2025. Youth incarceration remains high, and the United States continues to be “the only country in the world that sentences children to die in prison.”
All the while, reproductive rights have also deteriorated sharply. States have banned or restricted abortion, and prosecutors have brought hundreds of cases against pregnant people. The administration blocked Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursement, causing more than a million people to lose health‑care coverage. It has frozen funds for family planning and dismantled research into racial inequities in maternal and newborn health.
LGBT rights have also been rolled back through executive actions that redefine sex as assigned at birth, restrict gender‑affirming care, and remove protections for transgender students. Twenty‑seven states have banned gender‑affirming care for youth, and the Supreme Court has upheld these bans.
Environmental protections have been gutted. The United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement, and the EPA has moved to revoke its finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. The administration has closed environmental justice offices and slashed budgets, limiting the government’s ability to address pollution disproportionately affecting poor communities and communities of color.
Meanwhile, privacy and technology rights have eroded as the administration centralized sensitive personal data within the new “Department of Government Efficiency,” a move the report says has created opportunities for “mass privacy violations.” ICE has acquired phone‑hacking tools and spyware, and federal agencies now monitor social media to flag people for deportation, particularly for “speech on Palestine issues.”
Foreign policy has witnessed a dramatic retreat from human rights. The administration has terminated nearly all US foreign aid, dismantled USAID, and hollowed out the State Department’s human rights functions. It has expanded sanctions against the International Criminal Court, targeting judges and NGOs. The annual human rights report was “politicized and badly distorted,” omitting key violations and whitewashing abuses by allied governments. The US withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and the Paris Climate Accords, and withheld UN dues. It has also carried out lethal strikes in the Caribbean that constitute unlawful extrajudicial killings.
HRW concludes that these actions “posed a significant threat to the global human rights framework,” signaling that the United States can no longer be relied upon to uphold international human rights law.
