Speech
Published on November 7, 2025
Thank you to the INHR for hosting this event and to my esteemed co-panelists. I also want to welcome civil society colleagues and representatives of UN member states joining this important discussion.
Although the U.S. federal government will not appear before the Council as scheduled, it is heartening to have so many other representatives of the United States—from state and local governments, in addition to civil society—in Geneva today to share their assessment of the U.S. human rights situation and how to improve it.
As others have noted, if the United States sustains its boycott of the UPR process—just as Nicaragua appears poised to do—it will be the first time a UN member-state has decided not to comply with the UN General Assembly resolution creating this process. This would be especially unfortunate given longstanding, bipartisan U.S. emphasis on advancing human rights at home and abroad and U.S. involvement in creating the UPR itself.
It would be ironic as well since the values and principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights—that the United States helped draft some 77 years ago—are central to those undergirding the UPR.
The United States has engaged in the UPR on three prior occasions – including under the first Trump administration. That engagement has helped to make the process a positive force in improving human rights in the United States and around the world. It has also provided an invaluable vehicle for ongoing, robust engagement between civil society and governments on human rights, which doesn’t happen in all societies.
The universality of the UPR process is one of the key features that has made that progress possible. Because all countries participate in the UPR, it cannot be said that it is discriminatory or political in nature.
We at Human Rights First, along with many others in the human rights community, reiterate our call for the U.S. government to return to this process. At the same time, regardless of whether it does, we urge the Council to scrutinize the U.S. human rights record. Is it in the U.S. interest to be in the same camp as Nicaragua’s government rejecting UN norms? I think not. But nor is it in the interest of the Human Rights Council or its members to give the United States a free pass. With or without U.S. government representation, the UPR for the United States should proceed during this 4th cycle.
HRF’s views on the current U.S. human rights record
For those of you who may not know Human Rights First, we were founded in New York almost 50 years ago as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. A longstanding, core element of our non-partisan work has been defending refugee and immigrant rights through individual representation of people seeking asylum, impact litigation, and broader policy advocacy and research.
Through pro bono asylum representation, we have seen first-hand the impact of federal government action on the everyday lives of asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants in the United States. Thus, I will focus my remarks on these issues.
Since the last UPR, respect for the rights of people seeking asylum or safety in the United States has been consistently eroded. However, things have taken an even sharper downward turn in the past ten months since the Trump administration took office on January 20.
In April of this year, we contributed to two joint civil society submissions—numbers 12 and 49—as part of this UPR cycle that focused on extensive, escalating U.S. human rights abuses against people seeking asylum, refugees, and immigrants.
As succinctly summarized in one of those submissions (Joint Statement 49):
[quote] “The United States continues to violate the human rights of non-citizens through mass detention, denial of due process, abusive and discriminatory policing, labor exploitation, and suppression of civic space.” [unquote]
I would like to drill down on three core areas of concern for Human Rights First with respect to refugee and immigrant rights.
The first area is mass detention. In recent years billions of dollars have been injected to supercharge the U.S. government’s campaign of mass detention of immigrants and people seeking asylum. In 2025, this detention machine grew to unprecedented levels with Congress appropriating to the U.S. federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) $45 billion for detention operations over the next four years. This is a 400% annual increase and larger than the budget for the entire U.S. federal prison system. An additional $30 billion was put towards ICE’s enforcement and deportation operations, increasing its annual budget three-fold.
The current U.S. government’s goal of “deporting millions of people” has led to the daily detention of over 60,000 people as of the end of August in an infrastructure with a maximum capacity for holding 41,500 people. To expand detention capacity, the United States incarcerates immigrants facing deportation in federal prisons, temporary processing sites and military bases, such as the offshore U.S. navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Moreover, over 90% of the U.S. immigration detention system is run by private prison companies, which are incentivized to maximize profits by understaffing facilities, denying minimally nutritious food and sanitation, and coercing manual labor from detainees. The result? Detainees sleeping on floors. And 25 deaths in ICE custody so far in 2025—the deadliest year in ICE’s history.
This massive deportation operation has also resulted in the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens. While the U.S. government does not track how many U.S. citizens ICE detains, an independent investigation found at least 170 U.S. citizens, including 20 children, have been detained at raids or protests since the start of this administration. At least three of those citizens were pregnant at the time ICE detained them. Two of the U.S. citizen children had cancer.
While detained, people are routinely held incommunicado—untraceable by the public and unable to communicate with the outside world, including family and attorneys. This amounts to what we believe are enforced disappearances under international law. In 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances issued General Allegations to the U.S. government for its practice of disappearing migrants in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody. Prior to being expelled or removed, some were pressured or forced to sign documents that in some cases they could not even see because they were shown a blank signature line on a screen. These problems have only gotten worse under the Trump administration.
We have also witnessed the Trump administration’s deeply troubling decision to revive the failed and inhumane policy of family detention, by reopening the Dilley family jail in South Texas. This facility is notorious for family separations, abusive, and subpar conditions. Medical experts have long warned that detaining families causes lasting and often irreversible harm particularly to the children, triggering severe health and developmental consequences—including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, developmental regression, suicidal thoughts, weight loss, sleep disruption, and recurring illness. These warnings have become devastatingly real at Dilley: a six-year-old child battling leukemia missed critical treatments while in custody; an infant lost eight pounds in just one month; and an eight-year-old with a broken arm was not taken to the emergency room because, according to detention staff, he “was not crying.”
A second major concern is U.S. denial of due process to migrants, which occurs through bans on asylum and refugee status, mass arrests, summary deportations, forced third country transfers, and denials of entry and residence due to racial and national origin discrimination.
In a series of regulations and executive proclamations issued by the second Trump administration, the United States systematically denies non-refoulement protection to non-citizens. A January 2025 presidential proclamation declares a “migrant invasion,” suspends entry at the U.S.-Mexico border for those without a valid visa, and bans asylum and other humanitarian protections. Human Rights First and partners have documented the dire human rights impact of this proclamation. Since January, we have found that DHS has used this Proclamation to deny access to asylum and expel or migrants fleeing countries like Afghanistan, Armenia, Ghana, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Uzbekistan and many others where there are significant human rights abuses.
The Trump administration has also negotiated an ever-growing web of largely undisclosed bilateral arrangements with countries to remove or expel—without reasonable notice—asylum seekers, refugees, people granted withholding of removal, and other migrants. Under these agreements, the administration has carried out escalating and illegal transfers of people to third countries where they have no connection, lack legal status, and face arbitrary detention. They also face refoulement to persecution or torture in their country of origin. Human Rights First has legally challenged these transfers in several cases, although regrettably, the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed them to proceed during our legal challenge.
Among the most egregious third country transfers were the March flights of hundreds of Venezuelans to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador, where the men experienced months of torture and abuse before being refouled to Venezuela. There were also some Salvadoran nationals on these flights, including Kilmar Abrego Garcia who had previously been granted protection from deportation to El Salvador and was eventually returned to the United States.
In other disturbing cases, third-country nationals have been transferred to Eswatini, where they were arbitrarily detained in a maximum-security prison without access to legal counsel; to Costa Rica, where families were detained without access to essential medical or psychological care; and to Ghana, where a Gambian man who had been granted protection in the United States under the Convention Against Torture due to his sexual orientation was sent before being forcibly returned to his home country, where homosexuality is criminalized.
According to Human Rights First’s ICE Flight Monitor—which tracks flights carrying out deportations and many of these third country forced transfers—from January 20 to October 31, 2025, the Trump administration conducted a record 1,700 deportation flights to 76 countries. Among these was the first U.S. deportation flight to Iran (via a layover in Qatar), which reportedly carried political dissidents, a Christian convert, and others who had been denied—or prevented from seeking—asylum. Deportation flights have also increased significantly to repressive countries such as Nicaragua, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
On ICE flights, individuals are typically restrained at the wrists, ankles, and waist, even during multi-country routes that often last more than 30—or even 50—hours. Some individuals have been forcibly restrained in straitjackets, preventing them from moving their arms, standing, or even shifting position—a measure that medical experts warn can cause severe physical and psychological distress.
Third, and finally, the Trump administration has sought to use immigration law in ways that clearly deny the right to freedom of expression of non-citizens in the United States. For instance, we are proud to represent Yunseo Chung—a young woman originally from South Korea who came to the United States with her family when she was only seven years old and has permanent resident status. The U.S. government sought to detain and deport her because of her peaceful participation in pro-Palestinian protests. Fortunately, a federal judge issued a ruling blocking the United States from detaining her while we litigate to defend her First Amendment right to free expression. Similarly, the Trump administration has authorized the revocation of or denial of visas merely because of non-citizens’ alleged engagement in discourse with which it disagrees, including pro-Palestinian speech or criticism of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Recommendations
In closing, and in response to many of the wide-ranging concerns I have just detailed, Human Rights First recommends the following:
Thank you.
