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human rights
Six Months Into His Presidency, Trump Has Created a Global Humanitarian Catastrophe
The question now facing other world leaders is stark: will they continue to capitulate to Trump’s unilateralism, or will they stand up and defend multilateralism and international solidarity?
Jul 18, 2025
As the UN’s independent expert on poverty, I am no stranger to harrowing statistics. But few numbers have shaken me like those emerging in the wake of the Trump administration’s suspension of U.S. foreign aid. According to new estimates published in The Lancet, these funding cuts could result in more than 14 million deaths by 2030, a third of them young children.
These deaths will not be the result of droughts, earthquakes, pandemics, or war. They will be the direct consequence of a single, lethal decision made by one of the wealthiest men to ever walk this planet.
On his first day back in the White House, President Donald Trump handed a death sentence to millions of people. Hours after taking office on January 20, 2025, he signed Executive Order 14169, ordering a pause on billions of dollars of foreign aid under the guise of a “90-day review” to ensure aid was aligned with his “America First” approach.
Six months later, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been dissolved, and the entirety of America’s global humanitarian aid workforce will be terminated over the summer. The findings of the “review” have not been published.
What was billed as a temporary policy reassessment has transformed over the first half of 2025 into a full-blown humanitarian emergency.
Until the U.S. State Department releases a full assessment report, one can only conclude that the decisions to suspend foreign aid and subsequently dismantle USAID were made in an environment of zero transparency, zero accountability, and with no clear justification for a decision that will ultimately cost millions of lives.
What was billed as a temporary policy reassessment has transformed over the first half of 2025 into a full-blown humanitarian emergency. Estimates put the death toll since the aid freeze was announced at nearly 350,000 people—more than 200,000 of them children. All of these deaths were entirely preventable.
USAID and additional cuts to the UN and its agencies mean the UN faces the gravest threat to its existence in its 80-year history. UNFPA, the UN's reproductive health agency, estimates 32 million people will lose access to its services. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, warns that 12.8 million displaced people are at risk of losing life-saving health interventions. The International Organization for Migration projects 10 million migrants and internally displaced people will miss out on emergency assistance.
The retreat may feel politically convenient, but the consequences will not stay confined to distant borders.
We are numbed by numbers. “One death is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic,” the saying goes. But these are our fellow humans—right now—suffering and dying. Children refused food. Refugees denied life-saving care after fleeing the horrors of war. Mothers bleeding to death during childbirth. All because the United States, once the backbone of the global humanitarian system, has suddenly turned off the tap.
America has abandoned the fight against poverty. But what does it mean to put America first while letting children elsewhere starve to death? The retreat may feel politically convenient, but the consequences will not stay confined to distant borders. When food systems collapse, migration spikes. When vaccines are cut off, disease spreads. When aid disappears, conflict grows. There is no version of global instability in which the U.S. remains unscathed.
No other country is stepping in to fill the void left by the United States. On the contrary, many are following suit, redirecting money once earmarked for life-saving development programmes—initiatives that ultimately build a safer, more stable world–towards defense spending.
These decisions are not just budgetary shifts; they represent a fundamental threat to multilateralism and the international rules-based order that has kept the world from the brink of world war for well over half a century.
The question now facing other world leaders is stark: will they continue to capitulate to Trump’s unilateralism, or will they stand up and defend multilateralism and international solidarity, including financial support, as our only safeguard against chaos, endless conflict, and unnecessary human suffering?
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'Cruel and Unlawful': Global Fury as EU Plays Footsie With Israel Amid Active Genocide in Gaza
Individual E.U. countries must "now take matters into their own hands and unilaterally suspend all forms of cooperation with Israel that may contribute to its grave violations of international law," said one advocate.
Jul 16, 2025
The head of one of the world's top humanitarian organizations called the results of a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels on Tuesday "one of the most disgraceful moments in the E.U.'s history" after the officials refused to suspend the bloc's trade deal with Israel—weeks after the E.U.'s own review found that Israel's assault on Gaza is breaching human rights obligations within the agreement.
"European leaders had the opportunity to take a principled stand against Israel's crimes, but instead gave it a green light to continue its genocide in Gaza, its unlawful occupation of the whole occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), and its system of apartheid against Palestinians," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.
The meeting was held by 27 foreign ministers a week after Kaja Kallas, the E.U.'s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, forged a deal with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in which Israel said it would allow food and fuel to enter Gaza through aid crossings after months of a near-total blockade. The vast majority of aid has been blocked from entering Gaza since Israel began its assault on the enclave in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—an assault that, despite claims to the contrary by Israel and its allies, has targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure and not just Hamas.
The E.U. has said that about 80 aid trucks are now being allowed into Gaza per day—still a fraction of the 500 per day that entered the enclave before Israel's bombardment began.
Bushra Khalidi, policy lead in the OPT and Gaza for Oxfam International, said that "in reality," the recent aid deal "is mere bread crumbs" that "cannot stop this catastrophe."
"We cannot continue to watch children killed and say, 'We are making progress.' We cannot watch food rot in aid trucks while people starve and say, 'This is working,'" said Khalidi. "The E.U. cannot continue to maintain full ties with a government it acknowledges may be violating E.U. human rights principles, while offering humanitarian aid with one hand and enabling impunity with the other. We do not need another cautious statement nor another backroom deal. We need real leadership and decisive action. Enough of passing the buck. Enough of the delay. Enough of the bloodshed."
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said Wednesday that 1 in 10 Palestinian children in Gaza are now malnourished due to the continued blockade, and the U.N.-backed Global Protection Cluster reported that Israel's bombings and shellings are now causing an average of 10 children per day to lose at least one limb. Since Israel began its attacks, Gaza now has the grim distinction of having the highest number of child amputees per capita.
Human rights organizations and renowned experts have said Israel's assault on Gaza is a genocide.
Considering the humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza, directly caused by Israel's assault, Callamard said the E.U.'s refusal on Tuesday to suspend the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement or take other steps to hold Israel accountable was "a cruel and unlawful betrayal—of the European project and vision, predicated on upholding international law and fighting authoritarian practices, of the European Union's own rules and of the human rights of Palestinians."
"European leaders had the opportunity to take a principled stand against Israel's crimes, but instead gave it a green light to continue its genocide in Gaza."
Oxfam emphasized that Article 2 of the trade and cooperation agreement states that "relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this agreement."
At the meeting in Brussels, member states were presented with 10 options, including an arms embargo, sanctions on Israeli ministers, halting visa-free travel for Israeli citizens to the E.U., or banning trade with Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law.
Along with the suspension of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, those options were rejected by a majority of the foreign ministers.
Kallas said the E.U. will "keep these options on the table and stand ready to act if Israel does not live up to its pledges," but emphasized that "the aim is not to punish Israel. The aim is to improve the situation in Gaza."
As The Guardian reported, Saar expressed confidence on Monday that "the E.U. would not take any action" against Israel.
Only Spain advocated strongly for a suspension of the association agreement, with Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares also demanding an E.U. arms embargo on Israel.
Countries including Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic opposed suspending the association agreement, and Hungary, a staunch ally of Israeli Prime Minister Banjamin Netanyahu, objected to sanctions on Israeli settlers who have violently attacked Palestinians in the West Bank.
Claudio Francavilla, acting E.U. director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that E.U. ministers had "traded away" an opportunity to hold Israel accountable for its human rights violations "for the illusory promise of a few more trucks."
"Once again, E.U. ministers have failed," said Francavilla.
Callamard called on member states to "now take matters into their own hands and unilaterally suspend all forms of cooperation with Israel that may contribute to its grave violations of international law, including a comprehensive embargo on the export of arms and surveillance equipment and related technology, and a total ban on trade with and investment in Israel's illegal settlements in the OPT."
The continued failure to act worsens "the risk of complicity in Israel's actions" and "sends an extremely dangerous message to perpetrators of atrocity crimes that they will not only go unpunished but be rewarded."
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The Fate of Detained Workers Depends on Us
Only by making it politically and socially unacceptable—and ultimately illegal—to hunt for undocumented people and treat them inhumanely, can we really change this situation.
Jul 13, 2025
For everyone who cares about Migrant Justice leaders Ignacio “Nacho” de la Cruz and his 18-year-old stepdaughter Heidi Perez, it’s great news that the immigration court has ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to release them—at least for now.
Well more than 100 people protested outside Burlington, Vermont’s Federal District Court for a rally with moving speakers both Monday and Tuesday—and just as many had shown up at the Statehouse a few weeks before to demand their release. The courtroom itself was also packed for a habeas corpus hearing for Heidi, which is probably irrelevant given her upcoming release. But she and her stepfather are still vulnerable to deportation.
Why were the two detained at all? Coverage in Vermont Digger presents an unnerving picture of a “fishing expedition.” Perez and de la Cruz describe in “declarations” injuries which occurred when the driver’s window was broken by a Border Patrol supervisor, as well as physical maltreatment and a threat to their children once they were in custody. At the time, they say the agent refused to answer why he had stopped them apart from the fact that the driver spoke Spanish. The report of his affidavit in Digger reported that he expected to see more people in the back of the van (which he did not). He said that the driver and Perez refused to roll the window down fully, produce a driver’s license, or respond to his questions. From their point of view, they were within their rights to call the Migrant Justice hotline, and asked repeatedly why they were stopped and whether they were free to go. Since the detention, the government has also alleged that de la Cruz may have been involved in smuggling people based on the phone they seized from him. The alleged incident involves six people (reported here.) No charges have yet been filed against him.
Situations like this are going to arise more and more often everywhere in the country, and on our doorstep in Vermont. Under new legislation which eviscerates low-income healthcare access, ICE will gobble up more than the combined budgets of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Prisons.
If there was ever a time to show up in public and financially for Vermont’s dairy workers and their organization, it’s now.
Even after hearing of the upcoming release, a progressive lawyer friend and I were left with a queasy feeling about the ultimate outcome after Monday’s hearing for Heidi—despite Heidi’s being a poster child for everything we would want for an immigrant in this country. She graduated from Milton High School just days before she was detained. Even as a junior, she was a leader and speaker with the Milk with Dignity campaign to improve conditions for Vermont’s migrant dairy workers. Perez was among those behind the Education Equity Act, which allows financial aid and in-state tuition regardless of a student’s immigration status. Her opinion piece in Vermont Digger, coauthored with Brissia Hernandez, said, “When we first moved to Vermont, there was basically no hope for students like us to go to college, even though we have been dreaming of it since we were little.” Perez has a scholarship to attend Vermont State University this fall. She thinks far beyond her own needs, and made our state a fairer, better place.
She’s done everything right—except that she is undocumented.
In the same Vermont Federal District courtroom, habeas corpus hearings were also held for Rümeysa Ozturk, Mohsen Mahdawi and Kseniia Petrova. Each was in the country legally, and their legal status was capriciously revoked without due process. In contrast, Perez and de la Cruz are caught in a trap, a “cruel system” as several rally speakers described it. We depend on their labor but make it all but impossible for them to achieve legal status in the U.S. The government in power is pushing to expunge them from our country.
The power of the federal government is now behind every Border Patrol agent, the quotas are out there, and the agents are expected to fill them. We can’t really count on the administration’s mixed messages. Most of Vermont’s dairy workers and many of our construction and landscape workers are vulnerable to the same treatment that was meted out to Perez and de la Cruz. Recent raids have upset the whole dairy industry. No matter what someone’s rights may be in the technical sense, Border Patrol has carte blanche in most of Vermont. Only by making it politically and socially unacceptable—and ultimately illegal—to hunt for undocumented people and treat them inhumanely, can we really change this situation.
Even if these two prominent leaders were not targeted initially (and they may have been), a simple identity check would have revealed who they are. Conservative estimates say we have 800-900 dairy workers plus families in Vermont, and only a handful have been detained, fewer deported—and two of that handful are Migrant Justice leaders.
Will the legal system—whether the District Court or the immigration court—ultimately give relief to the undocumented workers who have been persecuted under every president, Democrat or Republican? Except when the government missteps or treats people badly, it’s hard to imagine real relief. Watching a 4-year-old girl in pigtails cavorting on the edge of the rally, I shuddered to think her undocumented parents might be deported. Among the speakers was Wuendy Bernardo, the primary caregiver for her own five children and two orphaned younger sisters. ICE requires her to report every month now, where hundreds have accompanied her on the last several visits. Her quiet dignity, her grave face, and the child clinging to her side told the whole story. She said “Here, we can feel the sun and the wind. In detention, you don’t feel that. You don’t even know if it is night or day.”
If the legal system offers only limited relief because it has now been tuned toward cruelty and persecution, our answers are in the streets, in the legislature, in the media—and beyond that in human kindness. People on dairy farms are afraid to go shopping. They are afraid to send their kids to school. Migrant Justice needs our presence and our help. As a worker-led organization, it has been a consistently positive force in winning legislative victories, with de la Cruz as an important figure in most. It builds solidarity, exposes abuses, and fights for better conditions.
If there was ever a time to show up in public and financially for Vermont’s dairy workers and their organization, it’s now. It's too dangerous for them to be on the streets themselves, and besides, most of them are working 12-hour shifts. It’s our turn.
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