UN panel condemns Trump over racist hate speech and immigration crackdown

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GENEVA — A U.N.-backed panel of independent experts said racist hate speech by U.S. President Donald Trump and other U.S. political leaders, along with a crackdown on immigration enforcement in the United States, has led to “grave human rights violations.” The Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued its decision Wednesday under its early warning protocol, asserting that the allegations are tied to how the United States is carrying out obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

In its decision, the committee urged the U.S. to suspend immigration enforcement operations at, and near, schools, hospitals and faith-based institutions. The committee framed the step as part of how the country would respond while reviewing whether its immigration policies comply with international human rights law, according to the report.

The committee also said it is “deeply disturbed” by derogatory and dehumanizing language used around migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. The decision reported that it had attributed a reported rise in racial discrimination to “racist hate speech” targeting those groups, and it said public figures and politicians can weaponize stereotypes that raise the risk of discrimination and hate crimes.

The committee singled out rhetoric that portrays migrants and refugees as criminals or burdens, and it warned that such language may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes, the AP report said. The panel said it did not point to specific data for the reported rise in racial discrimination, while it also described concern about the effect of “politicians and influential public figures at the highest level” on discrimination outcomes.

The decision further described concerns about identity checks and other enforcement practices. It said Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection were singled out for racially profiling people of color and conducting identity checks that “often seemed arbitrary,” adding that the concerns extend beyond speech to how immigration enforcement is carried out.

In the report’s discussion of lethal force, the committee cited incidents involving “discriminatory, dangerous and violent methods,” saying those incidents left eight people dead in the previous three months. The panel said the deaths include Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens protesting in Minnesota, who were killed in separate shootings at the hands of federal agents during “Operation Metro Surge,” according to the AP account.

The committee said the use of lethal force in those two cases amounted to “arbitrary deprivation of life and other gross violations of international human rights law.” It also said migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who are detained should receive humane and equal treatment without discrimination and that the report described denials of basic essential services, including health care, education and social support.

While the committee’s findings were presented as a formal warning, the panel said the decision is not legally binding. It also called on the U.S. to repeal “discriminatory measures” related to asylum procedures and to put safeguards in place so immigration agencies cannot access personal data in government databases, the AP report said.

The U.S. response came from the White House spokesperson Olivia Wales, who rejected the committee’s assessment. “This United Nations assessment is just as useless as their broken escalator, and their extreme bias continues to prove why no one takes them seriously,” Wales said, according to the AP report, adding that Trump’s work reducing crime and securing the U.S. border should be considered instead.

Wales also said, “No one cares what the biased United Nations’ so-called ‘experts’ think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before,” the report said. The AP account described the committee as having criticized U.S. racism and discrimination in earlier years as well, including in 2014, after widespread Black Lives Matter protests tied to the police shooting death of Michael Brown, and again in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.

The AP report said the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination counts 18 independent experts from around the world. The committee monitors implementation of the treaty, and the U.S. ratified the convention in 1994, according to the report.