Human Rights on Capitol Hill – April 2021 Newsletter

We welcome the Mar. 25 reintroduction of the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act by Representatives Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Adam Smith (D-WA). This bill addresses abusive conditions and profiteering incentives that characterize the immigration detention system. Homeland Security (“DHS”) operates a sprawling network of over 200 detention facilities with the capacity to detain tens of thousands including families and asylum seekers. The mass detention of asylum-seekers poses a danger to the health of detainees and contravenes U.S. obligations with respect to due process, human rights, and refugee protection. Detainees frequently endure horrific conditions including sexual assault, solitary confinement, and denial of medical care. For-profit detention further fuels human rights abuses, and the vast majority of people in DHS custody are locked up in facilities owned or managed by private prison companies or state, county, or local governments.In a national letter Amnesty and 126 organizations urged Congress to swiftly pass this bill. In an Apr. 5 CNN op-ed Rep. Jayapal and Amnesty’s national advocacy director, Joanne Lin, called on Congress and the President to pass and sign the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act.

We welcome the Biden administration’s actions geared towards reducing gun violence, including $5 billion in funding for community-based violence prevention programs in the American Jobs Plan, a proposed rule to help stop the proliferation of ghost guns, and the nomination of David Chipman to be the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (“ATF”). Members of Congress should fund the proposed programs to end gun violence by re-introducing and passing the Break the Cycle of Violence Act.

Two months into his presidency, President Biden administration has yet to sign a new, revised Presidential Determination (“PD”) on refugee admissions. In our Mar. 19 letter to the National Security Council we urged the President to immediately issue the Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions of 62,500 refugees. The President’s delay in signing a revised PD has led to over 700 canceled flights for refugees approved for travel to the U.S. and an indefinite suspension of travel for hundreds of additional refugees. This is devastating to refugee families who are anxious to be reunified as well as to the many host communities that have secured housing and set up welcome teams for refugee arrivals. We urge the President to immediately issue the Emergency Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions of 62,500 refugees, as was proposed to Congress in February.

On Apr. 6 Amnesty International published Amnesty International Report 2020/21: The State of the World’s Human Rights which analyzes the human rights records of 149 countries (including of the U.S.) and delivers a comprehensive analysis of human rights trends globally in 2020. The global pandemic has exposed the terrible legacy of divisive and destructive policies that have perpetuated inequality, discrimination and oppression and paved the way for the devastation wrought by COVID-19.

We applaud Secretary Blinken for the reversal of harmful practices by the previous administration that excised sexual and reproductive rights from State Department (“DOS”) reporting and sought to hierarchize human rights and weaponize certain rights to justify discrimination. In the release of the DOS Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Sec. Blinken reaffirmed the U.S. government’s commitment to human rights as universal and co-equal, rejecting the findings of the disbanded “Unalienable Rights Commission,” and reaffirming sexual and reproductive rights as human rights. Amnesty submitted this Mar. 10 statement outlining our top international human rights priorities for the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “The Biden Administration’s Priorities for U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Amnesty International joined a Feb. 26 letter with 400 civil society groups urging the Biden administration to support an emergency COVID-19 waiver from the World Trade Organization’s (“WTO”) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (“TRIPS”) agreement. The waiver is necessary to provide greater supplies of vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tests for lower-income nations. The COVID-19 pandemic cannot be stopped anywhere unless vaccines, tests, and treatments are available everywhere. 

For more on the TRIPS waiver and intellectual property restrictions on the equitable distribution of COVID-19 products, read this Mar. 9 Just Security blog and Amnesty International’s statement for the Mar. 10 House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee hearing titled “A Year into the Pandemic: The State of International Development,” and watch this Mar. 10 interview. Amnesty urges the administration to support multilateral efforts to ensure affordable and equitable vaccine access for all, including the proposed WTO TRIPS waiver and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (“C-TAP”).