Racial justice remained a pressing human rights concern in the United States in 2024. The US ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination nearly 60 years ago but has done far too little to implement its provisions. Living legacies of slavery and the slaughter and dispossession of Native peoples remain largely unaddressed.
Critical human rights issues in 2024 included abusive border policies and denials of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers, expansion of sometimes deadly constraints on reproductive rights, new threats to LGBT rights, and restrictions on voting rights, abuses often targeting or falling heaviest on communities of color.
Donald Trump was reelected as president in November. His previous record in office and explicit campaign promises raised serious concerns about the threats his second term as president would pose to a wide range of human rights and to the democratic institutions tasked with upholding them.
Structural Racism and Other Discrimination
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the two last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. Calling the decision a miscarriage of justice, the survivors have requested a federal investigation.
Although efforts to create a federal reparations study commission did not advance in 2024, several state legislatures proposed measures to address historical injustices that manifest the legacies of enslavement for Black communities.
In June, a federal judge in Oklahoma City struck down part of a state law that censors teaching certain gender and race topics, providing a bright spot in a year with a spate of efforts to censor the teaching of Black history in several states.
Students, parents, and educators continue to oppose laws that undermine democracy by restricting classroom discussions of race, history, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and by banning books by authors addressing these issues. Human Rights Watch and partners documented the harmful effects of these laws and asked the federal government to intervene in school censorship and discrimination.
April marked the 10th anniversary of the Flint water crisis, a policy-induced disaster where state decisions caused a dramatic increase in lead levels in a Michigan water supply, contributing to widespread and permanent harms especially among children in predominantly Black and Brown communities. Water pipes throughout Flint remain contaminated and there is no deadline to complete remediation.
Indigenous groups and partners continued the fight to halt the construction of a lithium mine at Thacker Pass (Peehee Mu’huh) in Nevada. They contend the mine is being built on religious and culturally significant land where a US army unit massacred their ancestors in 1865, and will harm the area flora, wildlife, and water supply.
The region of Louisiana widely known as “Cancer Alley,” once dominated by plantations worked by enslaved people, hosts approximately 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, reportedly the largest concentration in the Western Hemisphere.
The facilities are the largest source of stationary greenhouse gas emissions in Louisiana and discharge deadly toxic pollutants, disproportionately harming the health of Black residents, many of whom are descended from these same enslaved communities. People living in parts of Cancer Alley have the highest risk of cancer from industrial air pollution in the US, more than seven times the national average. New research revealed the toll of air pollution on maternal, reproductive, and newborn health there, with low birthweight and preterm birth rates as much as triple the US average.
In April 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency announced nationwide industrial regulations that will require hundreds of fossil fuel and petrochemical operations across the country—including 26 in Cancer Alley—to curb toxic pollutants, reduce flaring, and increase air monitoring in surrounding communities, including reducing emissions of the most toxic chemicals by as much as 80 percent. The government also announced over US$150 million to support Louisiana’s transition to renewable energy.
Criminal Legal System
The US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with roughly 2 million people held in jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities on any given day, and millions more on parole and probation. Many children continue to be prosecuted as adults in all 50 states and the US remains the only country in the world to sentence child offenders to die in prison. Racial disparities persist at every point of the criminal system, including police stops, searches, arrests, charging, and sentencing.
The US carried out the death penalty in eight states reaching the grim figure of 1607 executions since 1976. Alabama conducted two executions using nitrogen gas, an untested and inhumane method.
Violent crime rates dropped in 2023 and continued to drop in 2024, yet misinformation and misleading narratives continued, feeding calls for the rollback of reforms and new restrictions on pretrial release. The latter included a law in the state of Georgia prohibiting nonprofit organizations and charities from posting more than three cash bonds yearly; such bonds allow accused persons to be freed from custody unless and until actually convicted of a crime.
In its Grants Pass v. Johnson decision, the Supreme Court empowered localities to ticket, arrest, and even imprison unhoused people for inhabiting public spaces, including in Los Angeles, where unhoused people make up about 1 percent of the population but 38 percent of all arrests and citations by police.
As of November, police had killed 1225 people nationwide, exceeding the documented number from 2023.
Immigrants and Asylum Seekers
August marked the 30th year of use of “prevention through deterrence” tactics that funnel immigrants away from established crossings at the US-Mexico border to more remote areas, increasing deaths and disappearances.
In June, President Joe Biden suspended the right to make an asylum claim for immigrants who entered at the southwest border without authorization; it could only be reinstated when certain conditions are met. In September, he increased the conditions to be met before the suspension could be lifted. The Department of Homeland Security also issued a regulation establishing that asylum seekers who cross the border without authorization “will generally be ineligible for asylum, absent exceptionally compelling circumstances.” These measures violate US obligations under international human rights and refugee law.
In 2023, the administration introduced a regulation requiring asylum seekers to use the government’s CBP One app and limiting asylum access for people who cross the border between ports of entry or who do not seek asylum in a country of transit. Although 765,000 people from January 2023 through July 2024 were able to schedule appointments using the app, many lacked access and others reported difficulties using the app. Individuals waited months in Mexico, which exposed them to abuse and violence.
Texas’ Operation Lone Star, a program which purports to enforce federal immigration laws, has led to injuries and deaths, racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, and a chilling effect on freedoms of association and expression. Texas National Guard members fired pepper spray projectiles on migrants, including children.
Democracy and the Right to Vote
In May, the Supreme Court issued a decision allowing racial discrimination in the drawing of voting maps, dismissing the voices of Black voters challenging gerrymandering. In June, in Trump v. United States, justices ruled that former President Donald Trump could not be criminally indicted for at least some of his actions trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The latter opinion established a broad scope of presidential immunity for “official acts” while in office, a decision with potentially devastating consequences for democracy and human rights if interpreted to give presidents an absolute shield from prosecution for illegal attempts to overturn election results, serious human rights abuses, or comparably egregious misconduct.
The US continues to deny many people the right to vote because of contact with the criminal legal system, while most countries in the world never or rarely deny the right to vote because of a conviction. In April, Nebraska passed a reform that would restore the right to vote to at least 7,000 people with felony convictions. The law was set to go into effect in July 2024 but currently faces legal challenges.
More than one million US citizens, many with disabilities, have restricted political rights due to guardianship. At least seven states bar those under guardianship from voting, using outdated, sometimes denigrating laws. Despite conflicting with the Americans with Disabilities Act and other federal laws, these statutes remain unchallenged in courts.
Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights
The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision eliminating the constitutional right to abortion continued to have far-reaching and often devastating impacts on health and lives.
At this writing, 12 states had banned abortion and others harshly restricted access. People seeking pregnancy-related health services, including for miscarriages or obstetric complications, experienced life-threatening delays and denials of care. Laws forcing parental involvement in abortion continued to harm young people under 18.
Stark differences between states led to a surge in difficult and costly travel across state lines for care.
Abortion bans and restrictions disproportionately harmed Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
Some states moved to safeguard and expand abortion access. Voters in seven states approved ballot measures creating protections for abortion access. New York joined several other states in allowing Medicaid coverage for doula care.
Racial disparities in access to health care continue to impact women of color, and especially Black women in the South, who face a disproportionate risk of dying from cervical cancer, a highly preventable and treatable disease.
Maternal health inequities remain a serious problem. Maternal death rates in 2022 were significantly higher for Black women (49.5 per 100,000) than white women (19 per 100,000). Preterm birth rates also remained higher for Black women than for other women. The percentage of people accessing prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy declined.
Child Labor
Children continue to be injured and killed while working in dangerous and exploitative conditions in meat processing plants, factories, and other locations. The Labor Department reported an 88 percent increase in child labor violations since 2019. As of November, eight states had enacted legislation in 2024 weakening child labor protections. Congress and the Biden administration failed to pass legislation or update regulations to protect children working in agriculture, the deadliest sector for child workers.
LGBT Rights
Many state lawmakers continue to target the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Fewer than half of US states have statutory protections prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The US has failed to enact comprehensive federal legislation that expressly protects LGBT people from discrimination in areas such as education, housing, public accommodations, and federally funded programs.
The rights of transgender individuals, especially teens, continued to be a political lightning rod in the US in 2024 at the expense of their health and wellbeing. As of September 2024, 26 states banned at least some best-practice medical care for transgender children under age 18, and six criminalized such care as a felony offense. Twenty-six states prohibited transgender children from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity, 11 states banned discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools, and 8 states required school personnel to disclose students’ gender identity to their parents. Thirteen states prohibited transgender people from using bathrooms consistent with their gender identity in schools, with some of these bans encompassing other public facilities as well.
Older People’s Rights
In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released minimum staffing standards for nursing homes. University of Pennsylvania research showed their implementation could save thousands of lives annually. The American Health Care Association, other nursing home providers, and 20 states filed lawsuits to block implementation.
Technology and Rights
The US has no federal data protection law, leaving personal data open to abuse by government and private actors.
Federal agencies are considering regulation of artificial intelligence and data protection, including its use for national security purposes. Binding laws and regulations are necessary and should be informed by civil society and public inputs, and developed independently from private companies.
Federal agencies took further action against surveillance companies involved in abusive practices. The Commerce Department announced and then withdrew sanctions against Canadian surveillance software company, Sandvine. The Treasury Department issued targeted sanctions against Intellexa, a Greek company that develops Predator spyware, which has been misused worldwide to target journalists, human rights workers, and opposition politicians.
The Department of Homeland Security purchased software from the Israeli spyware company, Paragon Solutions, for use by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Biden administration then stopped that contracted work to evaluate its legality under the 2023 executive order prohibiting the use of spyware.
Significant US Foreign Policy Developments
The Biden administration did not consistently include human rights considerations in foreign policy. It sent military aid to governments that violated international law like Egypt and Israel, sold arms to autocratic governments like Saudi Arabia, and sent Ukraine indiscriminate cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines. President Biden hosted heads of state from Kenya and United Arab Emirates without public condemnation of those governments’ rights violations, and was reluctant to use leverage with allies like Rwanda and Ethiopia to curb their abuses.
However, US sanctions against a former Haitian president, Ugandan officials, leaders of the abusive Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, and violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, were important for accountability and to deter further abuses. The US successfully pushed for the release of political prisoners in Nicaragua and Vietnam, deployed a special envoy for Sudan, helped prevent the overturning of Guatemala’s 2023 elections, and led the creation of a mission to protect civilians in Haiti.