Trump’s immigration policy and the increasing powers of ICE “undermine” US democracy, HRW denounces

This is the bleak balance of the return of the Republican to the power that he has captured Human Rights Watch (HRW) in its annual report, in which it states that its immigration policy and the growing powers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents “undermine” US democracy.

In order to fulfill his electoral promise of carrying out the “largest deportation in history”, In 2025, the Republican launched an aggressive offensive to detain hundreds of people in an irregular situation through “violent and abusive” raids throughout the country.

The NGO denounces that many of these operations were carried out in full street, but also in homes, workplaces, regular immigration controls, courts, medical centers and campuses university students.

HRW reminds thatand revoked the federal directive that limited the application of immigration laws in “sensitive locations,” such as schools, hospitals and places of worship, extending arrests to these spaces.

Additionally, the United States Supreme Court allowed immigration agents to continue using the ethnicity and national origin perceived as factors that justify the arrest of people to determine their immigration status.

A “fear” campaign

As a consequence of all this, HRW denounces that the Trump Administration “summarily arrested and deported an increasing number of immigrants, mainly blacks and Latinos, violating due process and promoting fear“.

A total of 32 immigrants died during 2025 in ICE detention centers, the highest number in 20 years.

Another terrible fact about the magnitude of this immigration offensive that the NGO provides is that only at the end of last AugustOr, ICE had already detained more than three times as many people as in all of 2024.

Despite this, the NGO celebrates that Some courts were able to stop some of these “atrocious abuses,” as an attempt to deport unaccompanied minors to Guatemala.

The human rights organization also denounces that, in cities like Los Angeles o Chicagothe forces of order repressed with “an excessive and, in many cases, totally unjustified use of force” the massive protests against the deployment of the National Guard.

Bukele’s megaprison

HRW also mentions the controversial agreement between the Trump Administration and the Government of Nayib Bukele to deport at least 252 Venezuelan immigrants to the maximum security prison Terrorism Confinement Center, in El Salvador.

In “incommunication regime” y “subjected to torture and inhuman and degrading conditions“For months, these immigrants were finally returned to Venezuela.

The NGO denounces in its report that, in order to proceed with his expulsion to El Salvador – in its opinion, a “international crime of forced disappearance”-, the Republican Government had to resort to Foreign Enemies Law, a rule from 1798 that had previously only been invoked three times and only in the context of wars declared against foreign nations.

United States too transferred to third country nationals to other States, such as Costa Rica, Panama, Ghana, Mexico, South Sudan, Eswatini and Rwanda, under various bilateral agreements “lacking transparency” and that, in some cases, also involved the sending millions of dollars by Washington to the recipient countries.

These transfers were challenged in court for violations of due process and the principle of non-refoulement.

“Abusive conditions”

In addition, HRW recalls that they also opened new detention centers on military bases in states like Florida; In some of them, and in others already existing, “abusive conditions,” including gross medical neglect, overcrowding, and lack of sanitation.

Others were closed by the courts such as the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’Trump’s migrant prison inside a protected national reserve in Florida, which was dismantled in just a few months after strong criticism, protests and lawsuits.

On the other hand, the Department of Homeland Security tried to end the Temporary Protected Status for nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Sudan and Venezuela, threatening the legal status of thousands of people who cannot safely return to their countries of origin.
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HRW also points out that numerous immigrant university students were detained and subjected to deportation proceedings for his political speech, in particular for his rejection of the war in Gaza.

Trump Administration officials even acknowledged that social media posts and comments by visa applicants were used as criteria to deny admission to the United States.

In December, the Republican government suspended the immigration processing of citizens of 19 countries and pending asylum procedures for all nationalities.