How Trump’s Second Term Is Isolating the US on Human Rights

The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor includes an excerpt from the poem, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. It reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

Over the years, and particularly since the end of the Second World War, successive U.S. administrations have consistently striven to extend a helping hand to the world’s downtrodden and oppressed people. Even through the Cold War and during the so-called “War on Terror,” the official position of the United States never veered from the stated commitment to promote democratic values at home and abroad. That is, until now.

The current Trump administration is engaging in a monumental repudiation of First Amendment constitutional freedoms that the people of the United States have come to take for granted ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt made his four freedoms speech in 1941.

Three issues concern us.

First, protesters who champion human rights and causes which the current administration is opposed to are being subjected to all forms of intimidation and reprisals. This June, President Donald Trump threatened protesters speaking out against arbitrary enforcement of immigration laws with military force in the manner of dictators and despots. In Los Angeles, Marines and National Guard troops were deployed to intimidate anti-administration protesters. Worryingly, in a repudiation of the United States’ history as a nation of immigrants, foreign-born pro-Palestinian protest leaders and activists have been disproportionately targeted and subjected to arbitrary detention. Prominent examples include Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk.

Sadly, the United States appears to be sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism.

Second, press freedom, a cherished American ideal, is being crushed. Federal funding allocated by Congress to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports nonpartisan programming by the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio, and local stations, was abruptly canceled on account of its independence and failure to fall in line with the current administration’s worldview and political slant. President Trump himself has weaponized lawsuits against media outlets and journalists to silence criticism and exposure of facts, targeting major outlets ABC, CBS, Des Moines Register, and The Wall Street Journal.

Third, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which President Trump pushed through Congress and ironically signed on the Fourth of July, attacks civil society by cutting nonprofit funding by a projected $81 billion over the next decade. These cuts undermine civil society groups’ ability to serve our communities. Harsh moves to defund and hobble nonprofits amid ongoing culture wars negatively impact some of the most excluded people in the United States. Robust civil society organizations supported by the state are an essential element of an inclusive democracy.

Despite Israel’s genocide and forced starvation of the Palestinian people being live streamed, the present administration has perplexingly heaped insults and indulged in various forms of intimidation against United Nations experts when it should be supporting them as a responsible member of the international community and as a founding member of the U.N. The illegitimate sanctioning of Francesca Albanese, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, by the Trump administration at the behest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, whose members are under International Criminal Court scrutiny for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, is particularly egregious.

As a civil society alliance committed to strengthening civil society and citizen action throughout the world, we are appalled by the Trump administration’s crude assault on well-established principles of international law, especially those that prioritize the human rights and humanity of everyone and commit to promoting multilateralism to “leave no one behind.”

Courageous individuals in the United States and around the world are continuing to put their lives and livelihoods on the line to call out undemocratic practices and ongoing cruelty despite the obvious risks. Our members and sister organizations around the world, including Amnesty International, Oxfam, Plan International, and Save the Children, have expressed their aversion to the Trump administration’s policies that are causing untold suffering at home and abroad.

Sadly, the United States appears to be sliding deeper into the quicksands of authoritarianism. Peaceful protests are being confronted with military force, and critics are criminalized. The media and civil society are being intimidated and defunded. The bizarre assault on fundamental freedoms and constitutional safeguards that has defined the first six months of Donald Trump’s second term cannot become our new normal.