Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a statement Monday reassuring the US civil society groups of the human rights group’s solidarity amidst Trump administration funding cuts.
The human rights group highlighted that the funding cuts are “not a policy shift, but a direct and unjustifiable attack on the work of many important organizations.”
The statement underlined that the Trump administration executed a number of funding cuts with a focus on groups that promote reforms in the criminal legal system. The statement singled out Vera Institute, a group that advocated for criminal legal system reforms, and Estrella del Paso, a group that provides legal support to migrants among other services.
Besides civil society groups, the Trump Administration’s funding cuts targeted media. Amnesty International recently condemned the defunding of global media, pointing out a concern of human rights violations going unchecked. Reporters Without Borders also published concerns over the defunding of the global broadcaster.
The cuts also affected educational systems in the US. For instance, UPenn lost funding over their transgender sports policies and Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s demands concerning the Middle East studies program and student protest rules out of fear of funding cuts. Additional announcements to cut K-12 funding over gender-affirming school sports policies in Maine were made earlier this month.
Lastly, Amnesty International criticized funding cuts to USAID that had a direct effect on the human rights crisis in Yemen.
These funding cuts are just one branch of the actions committed by the Trump administration with human rights implications that were compiled into a report by HRW. One of the listed concerns in the report was deportation. The Trump administration made several troubling resolutions regarding deportation, one of them being an illegal deportation of a Maryland resident to El Salvador. Another example is HRW urging the US to end arrests and deportation of pro-Palestine student activists.
