Human rights are going towards increasingly greater polarization. Compared with the minority who occupy a dominant position politically, economically and socially, an overwhelming majority of ordinary people have been increasingly marginalized, whose basic rights and freedom are left in limbo. Seventy-six percent of Americans believe that their country is moving in a wrong direction.
Due to political battles, dysfunctional government, and ineffectiveness in governance, civil rights and political rights in the U.S. can’t be secured. A bipartisan consensus on gun control was struggling to build, leading to a continued high occurrence of mass shooting incidents. Approximately 43,000 people died from gun violence, with an average of 117 deaths every day. Police enforcement abused violence, with at least 1,247 people killed due to police violence in 2023, a new record since 2013. However, the law enforcement accountability system was virtually non-existent. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 25 percent of the global prison population, earning it the title of “carceral state.” Government credibility continued to fall, with only 16 percent of its population trusted the U.S. federal government.
Racism runs deep in the U.S., with severe instances in racial discrimination. UN experts pointed out that systemic racism against African Americans already infiltrated the U.S. police force and criminal justice system. Due to significant racial discrimination in the healthcare sector, the maternal mortality rate for African American women was nearly three times that of white women. Approximated 60 percent Asian Americans expressed that they were exposed to racial discrimination, while the “China Initiative” targeting Chinese scientists had far-reaching negative consequences. Racism spread via U.S. social media, music, and video-games, and spilled over beyond the U.S. borders, making the U.S. a major exporter of extreme racism.
Income inequality in the U.S. is worsening, with the plight of the “working poor” becoming prominent, highlighting a system where economic and social rights protections were failing. There were 11.50 million low-income working families in the U.S., and the purchasing power of one dollar in 2023 decreased to 70 percent of 2009, since when the standard for the minimum federal hourly salary had never been revised up. The number of the homeless surpassed 650,000, reaching a new high in 16 years. The plight of the “working poor” shatters the American Dream for hardworking laborers, leading to the outbreak of the largest-ever strikes in 2023 since the turn of the 21st century.
Women’s and children’s rights in the U.S. have long suffered from systemic violations. To date, the U.S. has not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and it is the only UN member state that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In April 2023, U.S. Senate rejected a constitutional amendment proposal to guarantee gender equality. Around 54,000 women lost their jobs annually due to pregnancy discrimination. Over 2.2 million women of childbearing age lack access to maternity care. Currently, 21 states in the U.S. either ban or severely restrict abortion. The number of maternal deaths has more than doubled in the past two decades. The survival and development rights of children are worrisome, with a large number of children being excluded from healthcare assistance programs. Forty-six states have been found to underreport approximately 34,800 cases of missing foster children.
The U.S. has historically and presently benefited from immigration, yet it grapples with serious issues of exclusion and discrimination against immigrants. From the notorious Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the internationally condemned “Muslim Ban” of 2017, practices of exclusion and discrimination against immigrants have become deeply entrenched in the U.S. institutional structure. Today, the issue of immigration has become a tool for partisan bickering and political scapegoating, with immigration policies reduced to a political arena for irreconcilable partisan battle — “if you’re for it, I’m against it”. Ultimately, it devolves into a political theater, using voters for political gain.
The U.S. has long pursued hegemony, practiced power politics, and abused force and unilateral sanctions. It continues to supply other countries with weapons such as cluster munitions, exacerbating regional tensions and armed conflicts, resulting in significant civilian casualties and severe humanitarian crises. It aggressively carries out “proxy” operations, undermining the stability of other countries and infringing upon their human rights. Until today, the U.S. has still refused to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.
II. The Lingering Malaise of Racism
The United Nations Human Rights Council pointed out that racism in the U.S. persists in various forms, including racial profiling, police killings, and numerous human rights violations. Minority communities in the U.S. face systemic, persistent, and pervasive racial discrimination. Racism is widely prevalent in U.S. society and malignantly spreads to the international community.
African Americans face severe racial discrimination in the process of law enforcement. On Jan. 3, 2023, Keenan Anderson, a 31-year-old African American man in Los Angeles, was suspected of being involved in a traffic accident. To subdue him, the police shocked him six times with a Taser, which led to a heart attack. He was pronounced dead after being taken to the hospital. On Jan. 7, 2023, police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, stopped 29-year-old African American man Tyre Nichols for “reckless driving” and subjected him to a brutal beating that lasted several minutes. Three days later, Tyre Nichols died from severe injuries, and subsequent investigations could not verify the police’s claims of “reckless driving.” Following a field survey in the U.S., the International Independent Expert Mechanism on Advancing Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement, established by the United Nations Human Rights Council, released a report stating that systemic racism against African Americans has infiltrated the U.S. police force and criminal justice system. African Americans are three times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans and 4.5 times more likely to be imprisoned. Out of more than 1,000 police killings each year, only 1 percent of the involved officers are charged.
Hate crimes against African Americans occur frequently. The Associated Press reported on Aug. 29, 2023 that a white man wearing a mask shot three African Americans dead in Jacksonville, Florida, and the gunner killed himself after making racial remarks. The USA TODAY website reported on Aug. 29, 2023 that African Americans feel more insecure following several shootings against them. According to the hate crime statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in October 2023, there were as many as 3,424 hate crime incidents targeting African Americans in the U.S. in 2022. A report released by the Office of the Attorney General of the State of California on Jun. 27, 2023 showed that the number of hate crime incidents targeting African Americans in the state jumped to 652 in 2022 from 513 in 2021, up 27.1 percent.
Reparations for racial prosecution against African Americans remain a distant prospect. Shortly after the end of the American Civil War, the government promised to compensate every African American family who had been enslaved. But more than 100 years passed, the promised reparation has never been made. In 1989, African American Congressman John Conyers introduced the “Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans” (H.R.40 Bill), but this bill has never made it to the floor of the Congress for a vote in the decades since it was proposed. In 1921, a racial massacre against African Americans occurred in the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, killing hundreds of people. The lawsuit seeking compensation for the last three known survivors of the Tulsa Massacre remains unsolved, and Hughes Van Ellis, the youngest of these survivors, passed away in October 2023. According to a report released by the Pew Research Center on Aug. 10, 2023, 83 percent of African Americans said that efforts by the U.S. government to ensure equality were far from enough.
V. The Alarming Plight of Undocumented Immigrants
U.S. politicians engage in mutual recriminations over immigration issues. They neither have the ability to enhance the settlement capabilities of border areas for immigrants, nor they have the intention to improve the living conditions of immigrants after their entry. The humanitarian crisis in border areas continued to intensify, border policies contributed to modern slavery, and the rights of immigrants were trampled upon.
The humanitarian crisis in border areas has escalated. The southern border of the U.S. was labeled as the world’s deadliest land route for migrants by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The El Paso Times reported on Nov. 30, 2023 that in the 12 months leading up to Sep. 30, 2023, 149 immigrants died in just the El Paso border patrol sector. Among them, the number of female deaths more than doubled compared to 2022. Fernando Garcia, the Executive Director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) in El Paso, criticized that government agencies completely ignore the value of immigrants’ lives; the deaths of immigrants are a result of U.S. policies, and all of this is “death by policy.”
The farce of blaming immigrants is staged on a large scale. CNN reported on Dec. 30, 2023 that since April 2022, the Republican-led state of Texas had sent over 90,000 immigrants to cities governed by Democrats, including Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles. The Block Club Chicago website reported on Oct. 31, 2023 that since August 2022, over 19,000 immigrants had arrived in Chicago, overwhelming the city’s shelter system. Some immigrants, including children, had to be accommodated in temporary tents or even sleep on the streets. According to report from the Chicago Sun-Times on Oct. 14, 2023, John Ellis, a 6-year-old girl, alongside some elderly immigrants, was living in a temporary tent. With the onset of winter, the cold weather was making their situation even more difficult.
Entering immigrants suffer torture and other inhumane treatment. In the 2023 fiscal year, the total number of immigrants arrested or expelled at the southern border of the U.S. reached over 2.4 million. On Dec. 6, 2023, the UK’s Guardian website reported that the Stewart Detention Center operated by the U.S. private prison company CoreCivie in Lumpkin, Georgia, had long-standing issues such as solitary confinement, sexual abuse, medical negligence, and forced labor. Furthermore, a report released by the Innovation Law Lab on Feb. 15, 2023, exposed instances of torture of detainees at the Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, New Mexico, also operated by CoreCivie. At night, every 15 minutes, a guard would walk past the cells with a radio at the maximum volume, while knocking on the doors loudly and shining a flashlight directly inside to wake anyone who might be asleep. In cold weather, the ventilation ducts in each cell would blow cold air all night long. Some detainees tried to cover the vents with toilet paper or blankets, but the guards took away anything used to block the cold air. In these cells, toilet sewage and feces overflowed, forcing detainees to sleep on the floor amidst the stench.
Border policies contribute to modern slavery. Among the people trafficked in the U.S., 72 percent are immigrants, most of whom entered the country through smuggling. Most victims of human trafficking are women and children. A study by the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW) estimates that 60 percent of cross-border unaccompanied migrant children were forced by criminal groups to engage in child pornography or even drug trafficking. On Jun. 18, 2023, the USA TODAY website reported that immigrants were lured by drug trafficking groups to marijuana farms in northern California and southern Oregon, where they suffered slavery and forced labor. The trafficked immigrants in these marijuana farms were intimidated by armed guards, and forced to work for 16 hours a day or even longer, and sometimes they didn’t even get anything to eat. Female immigrants were subjected to sexual assault, and some were murdered, with their bodies discarded in the wilderness. CBS News reported on Jul. 27, 2023 that nearly 60 victims of human trafficking were smuggled into an illegal marijuana cultivation site in central California, where they were forced to process marijuana to repay debts to their smugglers.
VI. American Hegemony Creates Humanitarian Crisis
For a long time, the U.S. has been practicing hegemonism, unilateralism, and power politics. It threatens global security and stability with its military hegemony, conducts arbitrary military interventions, and disrupts regional situations. Furthermore, it incites proxy wars, exacerbates regional armed conflicts, abuses unilateral sanctions, and carries out illegal detentions and torture in the name of counter-terrorism.
Waging wars abroad creates enduring humanitarian disasters. A research report published on the website of Brown University’s “Costs of War” project in May 2023 showed that, following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. overseas “counter-terrorism” wars had caused at least 4.5 to 4.7 million deaths, including 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths due to war-incurred destruction of the economy, environment, public services, and health infrastructure.
Violating the sovereignty and human rights of other countries through the “foreign agent” program. To ensure sufficient funds and authority to support foreign armed forces in future operations, the U.S. Special Operations Command advocated for a bill known as the “Section 1208” program, which was ultimately incorporated into Title 10, Section 127e of the United States Code. Under this provision, the U.S. Department of Defense receives an annual budget fund to support foreign militaries, unconventional armed forces, organizations, and individuals who assist U.S. Special Forces in carrying out “counter-terrorism” operations. Katherine Yon Ebright, a legal advisor for the Brennan Center’s “Liberty and National Security Program,” noted that under Section 127e, the U.S. Department of Defense recruits, trains, and equips foreign military and paramilitary personnel and individuals, pays their salaries, creates proxy forces, and commands and controls them to pursue military objectives on behalf of the U.S. military. A report published on the website of Brown University in September 2023 showed that the U.S. conducted operations known as “127e” in countries including Afghanistan, Cuba, Iraq, Kenya, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Niger, and Tunisia. According to a report on The New York Times website dated May 14, 2023, the “127e” program did not monitor or review whether its proxies engage in human rights violations such as rape, torture, or extrajudicial killings during the execution of their missions.
The U.S. keeps providing weapons to conflict zones. The press release from the U.S. Department of Defense on Jul. 7, 2023 indicated that the U.S.’ additional military aid to Ukraine, valued at 800 million U.S. dollars, included a significant amount of cluster munitions. The Washington Post website reported on Dec. 11, 2023 that billions of dollars’ worth of arms flow annually from the U.S. to Israel. In an attack by Israel on the southern part of Lebanon in October 2023, white phosphorus munitions supplied by the U.S. were used, resulting in at least nine civilians being injured. Josh Paul, former director in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs published a column on The New York Times website on Oct. 18, 2023. In the article, he pointed out that the U.S. provided at least 3.8 billion U.S. dollars in military aid to Israel every year. He noted that the most severe casualties in the Gaza Strip were mostly caused by ammunition supplied by the U.S., condemning this military aid for disregarding human rights. The “Center for Constitutional Rights,” a U.S. human rights group, reported on Nov. 16, 2023 that William Schabas, an expert on genocide and the death penalty, accused the U.S. of failing to fulfill its legal obligations to prevent genocide, violating customary international law and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
