U.N. commission scolds Trump over ‘racist’ immigration enforcement surge

A U.N. human rights commission has issued an “urgent action” alert to the Trump administration, warning it has deported too many people and citing it for “racial profiling and racist hate speech” against refugees and illegal immigrants.

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, part of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, this week declared itself “deeply concerned,” “gravely concerned” and “alarmed” by what it has seen since President Trump took office.

The complaints covered the entire immigration enforcement wave, from how deportation targets are identified, to how they are treated in detention, to where they are sent once removed from the country. The committee particularly rebuked clashes in Minnesota that saw two U.S. citizens killed, saying the shootings “could constitute an extrajudicial execution of two peaceful protesters.”

“The committee was deeply troubled by the increasing use of derogatory and dehumanizing language, as well as the dissemination of negative and harmful stereotypes targeting migrants, refugees and asylum seekers,” the committee announced on Wednesday.

Early warning and emergency procedures are meant to prompt the United States to change course. America joined the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994.

The panel used the word “racist” more than a half-dozen times in its four-page memo, with a list of complaints that closely followed press releases from Democratic lawmakers.

Among them were information sharing between the IRS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; conditions of detention within ICE; and Homeland Security’s attempt to end Temporary Protected Status, a deportation amnesty, for a number of countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti and Nepal.

U.N. officials also complained about the more permissive approach to immigration enforcement by erasing no-go zones that the Biden administration had established around clinics, schools, daycares, school bus stops, playgrounds, food pantries, drug counseling locations, places of worship or any other “community organization.”

Officials specifically urged the U.S. government to create a definition of racial profiling and then ban its use during immigration enforcement.

That’s likely a failure in a world where law enforcement includes borders, and where national origin is often a key indicator used by officers and agents to investigate someone they see crossing the border.

Last year, the Supreme Court also gave tacit approval to brief immigration checks when perceived national origin or spoken language are among the factors justifying the action.

“To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot fuel reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s jurisprudence regarding immigration enforcement, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered with other salient factors,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote in a concurring opinion in the case.

In another complaint, the U.N. panel said DHS had to cross legal boundaries to achieve its high number of deportations.

The Washington Times has requested comment from the State Department on this story.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the UN alert “groundbreaking.”

“A leading United Nations anti-discrimination and human rights body has officially recognized what we know to be true: the Trump administration’s tactics to target and harass immigrants are unacceptable and run counter to basic, universal and inalienable rights – they must immediately end nationwide,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program.

In addition to the administration’s actions, the U.N. committee called for a “human rights-based review” of “legislative measures” adopted under Mr. Trump.

Another UN panel, the International Organization for Migration, criticized the United States in 2023 for having “the world’s deadliest land route for migrants.”

It came amid Biden’s border push, which saw a near collapse of U.S. border controls and, during peak months, hundreds of thousands of migrants entered the United States despite not having legal visas to do so.