United States of America - Universal Periodic Review - Immigration - April 2025
Country: United States of America
Partners: The James H. Binger Center for New Americans (BCNA)
Issues: Migrant Rights
Mechanism: Universal Periodic Review
Report Type: Stakeholder Report
During the relevant period, the U.S. failed to fully implement its obligations to noncitizens, migrants and refugees. The U.S. system of immigration continues to lack safe, orderly and fair pathways for migration that ensure family unity, the right to work with dignity, protections against nonrefoulement, and access to due process. Prolonged and arbitrary detention in immigration detention was common and often associated with abuses such as solitary confinement, inadequate healthcare, and failure to provide access to counsel. This was exacerbated with the passage of the Laken Riley Act in 2025, which created mandatory detention with no bond for offenses involving bodily injury or theft even for allegations without a charge or conviction. During the period, the U.S. also violated the right to seek asylum and refouled individuals to face persecution and torture based on a number of executive regulations that barred asylum based on manner of entry or arbitrarily restricted access. Moreover, increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric and sentiment resulted in race- and nationality-based discrimination, restrictions on freedom of association, unequal access to healthcare, and restrictions on liberties that were met with inadequate government response and protections. Migrants from minority groups, such as LGBTI+ individuals, indigenous persons, Black migrants, and children, were disproportionately impacted by language barriers, limited gender options, improper detention processes, lack of counsel, and discrimination. In 2025, the U.S. violated protections against enforced disappearance and threatened statelessness as well as deprivation of the right to nationality with the introduction of a number of executive actions diminishing rights of migrants and minorities.
