Contributor: U.S. standing on human rights is falling fast, driven by failures at home
Listening to politicians, it can be difficult to know how the U.S. government is performing in terms of human rights.
Some have pointed to a number of potential human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government inside and outside its borders in the past two years.
And yet President Trump recently called the country “the home of freedom” and “the land of liberty,” saying, “We’re doing better now than we’ve ever done before.”
Governments rarely convey accurate information about their own human rights abuses, so the task of measuring them typically falls to advocates and scholars. According to many of the human rights data sources available, the U.S. lags behind most other high-income democracies — countries that are both members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and classified as high income by the World Bank. The U.S.’ poor performance spans civil and political rights, such as the right to be free from torture and the right to political participation, as well as economic and social rights, including the rights to health and food.
In fact, the U.S. has been a relatively poor performer across many of these rights for quite some time, regardless of the political party in power.
Even accounting for the U.S.’ prior poor practices, however, new data from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (which I co-founded) show that in 2025 the country’s civil and political rights performance deteriorated even further. These data raise serious questions about the United States’ commitment to human rights.
Recognizing the problems with public reports, we collect information directly from researchers for human rights organizations, human rights lawyers and others, asking them about governments’ practices across several rights and using a statistical model to assess their information and ensure that the resulting metrics are comparable across countries. The result is a robust dataset that includes information previously missing from public reports.
According to the Human Rights Scores dataset, which uses publicly available information to score more than 190 countries on physical integrity rights — such as the rights to be free from torture, killing, forced disappearance and political imprisonment — the U.S. never ranked higher than 81st from 2001 to 2021 or higher than 109th from 2010 to 2021.
Indeed, from 2003 to 2021, the United States’ score was either the worst or the second-worst every year among high-income OECD member states.
The U.S. has also frequently been rated by the Human Rights Measurement Initiative as the worst performer on “empowerment rights,” or the rights to assembly, association, opinion, expression, political participation, religion and belief.
Even starting from this poor position, the U.S.’ civil and political rights practices dramatically worsened in 2025. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative measures nine civil and political rights, and the U.S. significantly worsened on eight of them.
These were not small changes. The U.S. showed the largest decline ever observed for the right to be free from forced disappearance and for the right to freedom of religion and belief.
The U.S. showed the second-largest decline ever observed for the right to be free from arbitrary or political arrest and for the right to opinion and expression.
The U.S. also showed major declines in the rights to be free from torture and extrajudicial killing, and the right to political participation — that is, the right to participate in one’s government via free and fair elections, to take part in public affairs and to have access to public service. U.S. scores likewise fell in the right to assembly and association, which is the right to peacefully gather in public or private and to form or join groups and organizations.
Human rights experts point to several issues that led to these declines. For instance, the U.S.’ worsened scores for the rights to be free from arbitrary detention, disappearance and torture were tied to the expanded use of practices such as incommunicado detention and warrantless arrest by immigration agencies.
While several killings occurred during ICE operations in 2025, the worsened extrajudicial killing score was also tied to the country’s use of airstrikes against boats in the Pacific and Caribbean, which caused the deaths of at least 123 people in 2025 alone.
Other changes enacted in 2025 contributed to large declines in the U.S.’ rights scores, including crackdowns on anti-ICE demonstrations and government pressure on universities, including limits on free speech and class subjects.
Last year also saw threats to television networks over political expression, restrictions on mail-in voting, state measures targeting American Islamic organizations by labeling them “foreign terrorist organizations” and an executive order focused on eradicating “anti-Christian bias.”
Early indicators about 2026 are not promising, with continued abuses by ICE, further killings in international waters and allegations of attempts to use government powers to punish critics. If you ask the human rights experts, the U.S. is clearly not “doing better now than we’ve ever done before.”
K. Chad Clay is the director of the Center for the Study of Global Issues and an associate professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. This article was produced in collaboration with the Conversation.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The article argues that the United States has long performed poorly on human rights compared with other high-income democracies, noting persistent weaknesses in civil and political rights such as freedom from torture and political imprisonment, as well as economic and social rights like health and food, regardless of which party holds power; this depiction aligns with human rights reporting that documents chronic problems in areas including abusive border policies, racial injustice and restrictions on voting and reproductive rights.[2][3]
- Building on this backdrop, the piece contends that U.S. civil and political rights deteriorated sharply in 2025, with new data from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative showing significant declines on eight of nine civil and political rights, including unprecedented drops in protections against forced disappearance and in freedom of religion and belief.
- The article reports that scores related to arbitrary or political arrest and the rights to opinion and expression also worsened dramatically, and it links these declines to expanded use of incommunicado detention and warrantless arrests by immigration authorities, echoing broader human rights concerns about increasingly harsh immigration enforcement and abusive detention conditions.[2][11]
- It further maintains that the United States’ standing on physical integrity rights—freedom from torture, extrajudicial killing, forced disappearance and political imprisonment—has been among the worst of any high‑income OECD country for years, and that in 2025 there were additional declines tied to killings during immigration enforcement operations and to lethal airstrikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean that killed at least 123 people; similar international rights reports describe deadly enforcement practices, including unlawful lethal force against migrants and asylum seekers.[2][11]
- The piece asserts that empowerment rights, including freedoms of assembly, association, expression, opinion, political participation and religion, also suffered in 2025, citing crackdowns on anti‑ICE demonstrations, government pressure on universities that limited speech and course content, threats against television networks over political expression, and new restrictions on mail‑in voting; independent democracy assessments likewise note growing pressure on free expression, civic space and electoral participation in the United States.[1][4][5][8]
- It argues that measures targeting American Islamic organizations by labeling them “foreign terrorist organizations” and an executive order aimed at eliminating “anti‑Christian bias” contributed to the largest recorded decline in freedom of religion and belief, as well as heightened fears of discriminatory enforcement against religious minorities, paralleling rights‑group warnings about policies that disproportionately harm Muslim communities and other vulnerable groups.[2][11]
- Finally, the article suggests that early signs from 2026—continued abuses by immigration authorities, further killings in international waters and alleged efforts to use state power to punish critics—indicate an ongoing slide away from human rights commitments, directly challenging political claims that the United States is “the home of freedom” and “doing better now than we’ve ever done before,” and it concludes that expert data and reporting contradict this optimistic self‑portrait.[2][5][11]
Different views on the topic
- In contrast, major democracy monitors such as Freedom House continue to classify the United States as “Free,” assigning a global freedom score of 81 out of 100 in 2025 and 2026, and emphasizing that, despite recent declines, the country maintains competitive elections, an active civil society and independent media that distinguish it from authoritarian regimes.[1][7][9][12]
- These assessments note that the 2024 U.S. elections were broadly free and fair, with peaceful transfers of power at many levels of government, and that key institutional checks—courts, some state and local authorities and investigative journalism—still constrain executive overreach and expose abuses, suggesting a level of democratic resilience not captured by the most pessimistic assessments.[1][5][7]
- Surveys of democratic performance also place the United States within the category of “flawed democracies” rather than authoritarian states, with indicators such as the V‑Dem Liberal Democracy Index and the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index showing decline but not collapse; analysts using these metrics argue that the United States continues to provide stronger protections for political rights and civil liberties than many countries, even as it falls behind several of its high‑income peers.[5]
- Other commentaries underscore that the deterioration in U.S. scores is part of a broader global trend, with international freedom indices recording their 20th consecutive year of worldwide decline in 2025; this perspective stresses that democratic backsliding is widespread and contends that the United States, while troublingly weakened, still compares favorably to many states where opposition parties, media and civil society face far more severe repression.[4][5][12]
- Some democracy analysts highlight the capacity of U.S. institutions and civil society to reverse rights violations over time, pointing to a history in which court rulings, congressional investigations, state‑level reforms and grassroots movements have rolled back abusive policies; these observers argue that the country’s constitutional structure, federalism and dense network of advocacy organizations provide tools that can still be used to confront and mitigate human rights abuses.[1][2][5]
- Foreign‑policy debates offer another counterpoint, as human rights advocates acknowledge substantial double standards but also note that the United States continues to deploy sanctions, public diplomacy and support for civil society in some contexts to pressure abusive governments; supporters of this role contend that, even amid domestic backsliding and inconsistent application, U.S. actions abroad can still contribute to human rights advances and should be weighed alongside domestic failings when judging the country’s overall human rights standing.[2][6][10]