Resources Addressing Human Rights and Trump’s Executive Orders

If you are teaching human rights, international law, constitutional law, immigration law or any combination of these topics, you by now have confronted the issue of whether the recent Executive actions suspending immigrant visas and restricting refugee entry violate international human rights law.  This blog collects some of the growing number of resources for teachers and students looking to explore those questions in greater depth.

First, there have been a number of efforts to catalog the human rights violations contained in Trump’s executive actions on immigration and refugee admissions.  In a February 2 op ed in Al-Jazeera, the director of the ACLU human rights program, Jamil Dakwar, systematically reviewed  “All international laws Trump’s Muslim Ban is Breaking.”  Columbia Law School’s Trump Human Rights Tracker also analyzes the human rights implications of the Executive Orders, among other Trump activities, and includes helpful links for further information.  The Harvard Immigrants Rights Clinic has released a report on the impact of the recent Executive actions on asylum seekers, analyzing long-standing provisions of U.S. and international law, including refugee law and the Convention Against Torture.

Second, international actors and UN experts have themselves spoken out on the human rights implications of these executive actions.  In early February, a group of UN Special Rapporteurs condemned the policy as a breach of US human rights obligations.  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has also expressed deep concern over the Executive actions directed toward immigrants and refugees, urging the US to rescind the Executive Orders and to ensure that policies are consistent with US human rights obligations.  The IACHR will have the opportunity to issue a more specific and detailed analysis if it responds to a request for an emergency public hearing on these issues, requested by the ACLU and dozens of other civil society organizations.

If you know of other resources, we encourage you to post them in the comment section of the blog.