Tanya Greene, US program director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), expressed Thursday that US President-elect Donald Trump will take office at a time when the country is grappling with major human rights challenges.

"Donald Trump is taking office at a time when the United States is already shifting in reverse on key human rights issues," Greene asserted.

She stressed that the departing Joe Biden administration made little headway in combating systematic racism and the growing danger to reproductive freedom.
 
She also noted that the US federal and state governments had implemented more oppressive border regulations.

According to Greene, "State and local authorities undid criminal legal system reforms and threatened fundamental freedoms."

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According to HRW's latest analysis, strong anti-immigrant laws, efforts to undermine democratic institutions, and new state regulations discriminating based on race, gender, and sexual orientation exacerbated the situation in the United States in 2024.

The report notes that "Donald Trump, who was re-elected to the US presidency in November, has promised policies that would severely undermine human rights and the country's democratic system of checks and balances."

According to the report, some US states passed legislation in 2024 that limited the teaching of Black history and classroom conversations about race, sexual orientation, and gender.

The US also curtailed immigrants' fundamental right to seek asylum when the average number of illegal people crossing the border without authorization surpassed a specific threshold, it noted.

Trump has stated that on his first day in office, he will execute a series of executive orders closing the US border to unauthorized immigrants, pledging that every foreign gang member and illegal alien on American territory will be deported and "destroyed."