United States Of America 2023

Discrimination and violence against LGBTI people were widespread and anti-LGBTI legislation increased. Bills were introduced to address reparations regarding slavery and its legacies. Multiple states implemented total bans on abortion or severely limited access to it. Gender-based violence disproportionately affected Indigenous women. Access to the USA for asylum seekers and migrants was still fraught with obstacles, but some nationalities continued to enjoy Temporary Protected Status. Moves were made to restrict the freedom to protest in a number of states. Black people were disproportionately affected by the use of lethal force by police. No progress was made in the abolition of the death penalty, apart from in Washington. Arbitrary and indefinite detention in the US naval base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, continued. Despite extensive gun violence, no further firearm reform policies were considered, but President Biden did announce the creation of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The USA continued to use lethal force in countries around the world. Black people, other racialized groups and low-income people bore the brunt of the health impacts of the petrochemical industry, and the use of fossil fuels continued unabated.

Discrimination

Individuals experienced excessive violence based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity, especially transgender people from racialized groups. LGBTI people were nine times more likely than non-LGBTI people to be victims of violent hate crimes. Only 54% of LGBTI adults lived in states with hate crime laws covering sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

The passage of anti-LGBTI laws at the state level increased dramatically. In 2023, 84 anti-LGBTI bills were enacted, a fourfold increase on 2022. A growing number of laws were enacted under the claim of religious freedom that curtailed or effectively eliminated the rights of LGBTI individuals.

Congress introduced four resolutions or bills that addressed reparations and truth and healing commissions regarding chattel slavery and Indian boarding schools and their legacies. The descendants of enslaved Africans, African Americans and Indigenous Peoples continued to live with intergenerational trauma, as well as the detrimental economic and material impacts of the legacy of slavery and colonialism, without reparations.

Following the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October, and the subsequent Israeli bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza, antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents against people who were or were perceived to be Jewish, Muslim, Israeli or Arab increased exponentially.

Sexual and reproductive rights

Following the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that ended federal protections around the right to abortion, 15 states implemented total bans on abortion or bans with extremely limited exceptions, impacting millions of people of reproductive age. Many other states implemented six-week, 12-week, or 15-20-week bans. Laws changed quickly and faced complicated challenges, creating a culture of uncertainty for many seeking abortion care. Multiple states sought to criminalize, or had criminalized, medication abortion, travelling out of state to receive abortion care, or assisting someone in a state with an abortion ban on travelling to receive abortion care.¹ In November, voters in Ohio passed a state constitutional amendment to protect access to abortion.

The USA continued to impose multiple restrictions on funding for abortion, even in states where abortion was legal, which disproportionately impacted Black and other racialized women. The federal Hyde Amendment continued to block Medicaid funding (a government-funded programme that provides health coverage for limited categories of people on low incomes) for abortion services, placing an unnecessary financial burden on pregnant people seeking abortion, particularly racialized groups and low-income people.

Gender-based violence

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women faced highly disproportionate rates of sexual violence. According to the most recent government data available from 2016, approximately 56% of AI/AN women had experienced sexual violence – more than twice the national average – and 84% had experienced some type of violence. A 2018 survey found that Alaska Native women were 2.8 times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-Indigenous women. Among the AI/AN women who had experienced sexual violence, the 2016 data shows that 96% had experienced sexual violence by at least one non-Indigenous perpetrator. US law continued to restrict the prosecutorial jurisdiction of Tribes, which prevented their ability to prosecute non-Indigenous perpetrators of violence against Indigenous women. AI/AN survivors also continued to face barriers in accessing post-rape care, including access to a forensic examination, which is necessary if a criminal case is to be brought against the perpetrator.

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

Following the termination of immigration policy Title 42, the USA implemented new migration measures that continued to drastically limit access to asylum at the US-Mexico border. These included an asylum ban that presumed ineligibility for asylum unless the individual was able to meet one of three exceptions and mandated the use of the CBP One mobile application (launched by US Customs and Border Protection in 2020) to schedule asylum appointments at specific ports of entry.² CBP One appointments were limited, resulting in asylum seekers being stranded in inhumane conditions at the border, where they were targets of violence and racism, especially women, unaccompanied children and Black asylum seekers.

The USA and Canada expanded the application of the Safe Third Country Agreement to both countries’ entire land borders, including waterways.

The administration extended Temporary Protected Status for Haitian, Honduran, Nepalese, Nicaraguan, Somalian, South Sudanese, Sudanese, Ukrainian, Venezuelan and Yemeni nationals, extending work authorization and protection from removal from the USA. A parole process was instituted for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, which provided travel authorization for up to 30,000 individuals from these countries to come to the USA each month with US-based sponsors. Approximately 251,000 people were granted travel authorization from January to September.

Congress did not vote on the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would have provided pathways to permanent residency status for Afghan evacuees.

Authorities continued a system of arbitrary mass immigration detention, surveillance and electronic monitoring. The for-profit industry continued to use private prisons to detain people seeking safety.

State authorities instituted new transportation schemes to transport asylum seekers from border states into the interior of the USA. Cities struggled to provide adequate shelter and services to arriving asylum seekers, with growing populations of asylum seekers unhoused or housed in inappropriate settings such as police stations or congregate shelters.

Freedom of assembly

Sixteen states introduced 23 bills restricting the right to protest, with five bills enacted in four states. Many of the bills would criminalize specific forms of protest, such as protests near fossil fuel pipelines, or increase penalties for existing crimes, such as “riot” or blocking roadways. In Mississippi, organizers were required to obtain written permission from state law enforcement before holding a protest near the Mississippi statehouse or other government buildings, enabling state officials to approve or disallow protests, including those against the actions of state officials. North Carolina heightened penalties for existing “riot” offences and for protests near pipelines.

Georgia charged 61 people with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act with their protests against the construction of a law enforcement and fire department training facility, referred to as “Cop City”. Many were also charged under a vague and broad domestic terrorism law.

After 7 October, regular large-scale, non-violent protests occurred across the country calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and for the US government to cease providing munitions to the Israeli government.

Excessive use of force

According to media sources, police shot and killed 1,153 people in 2023. Black people were disproportionately impacted by the use of lethal force, comprising nearly 18.5% of deaths from police use of firearms, despite representing approximately 13% of the population.

Following a visit by the UN International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice in the Context of Law Enforcement, the delegation called on the USA to collect, compile, analyse and publish data, disaggregated by race or ethnic origin, on direct interactions by the population with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. It also required the USA to ensure accountability in all cases of excessive use of force and other human rights violations by law enforcement officials, through prompt, effective and independent criminal investigations, with a view to holding perpetrators accountable.

On 18 January, a multi-agency law enforcement operation led by Georgia State Patrol officers started to clear encampments of Defend the Forest activists, who had been camped in the forest on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, since late 2021 to prevent the development of Cop City. Official accounts claimed officers came across a tent and verbally ordered the person inside to exit. Officers claimed that the person inside the tent, Manuel Esteban (Tortuguita) Páez Terán, an environmental human rights defender, shot at the officers, allegedly injuring a state trooper, before the officers returned fire and killed them. An independent autopsy revealed that Páez Terán had been shot 57 times and failed to find gunpowder residue on their hands.

Death penalty

Despite a moratorium on federal executions remaining in place, the Department of Justice continued to defend existing federal death sentences and sought reinstatement of death sentences on appeal and the imposition of new ones at trial. Two federal abolition bills were reintroduced in both houses of Congress, but neither was voted on.

In Alabama, in February, the Department of Corrections completed a review of its lethal injection process following a four-month moratorium, allowing the resumption of executions. In March, Idaho enacted a law authorizing the use of firing squads as a method of execution. In April, Florida enacted a law requiring only eight of 12 jurors to vote for a death sentence, the lowest threshold in the USA. In August, Alabama also finalized its protocols for executions by gas asphyxiation, a method found by UN human rights bodies to violate the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Alabama Legislature introduced but failed to pass a bill that would require unanimous juries to sentence a person to death and would retroactively apply a 2017 law abolishing judicial overrides of jury decisions on death sentences.

Washington officially abolished the state’s death penalty, after the state Supreme Court had declared the statute arbitrary and racially biased in 2018.

Arbitrary detention

Thirty Muslim men remained arbitrarily and indefinitely detained in the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, in violation of international law. Four individuals were transferred to third countries in 2023. Sixteen of the remaining detainees have been cleared for transfer, some for over a decade, without progress. Congress continued to block the transfer of any Guantánamo detainee to the USA, which meant the administration had to arrange for transfer to third countries where the detainees’ human rights would be respected.

There continued to be no accountability, redress or adequate medical treatment for the many detainees who have been subjected to torture and other ill-treatment and/or enforced disappearance.

Despite the US Supreme Court ruling in 2008 that Guantánamo detainees have a right to habeas corpus, detainees continued to be denied hearings. The US government’s “global war on terror” framework, which continued to defy international law, hampered the ability of federal courts to order the release of detainees. Even favourable rulings in federal courts did not result in the immediate release of detainees.

Eight detainees, including five men accused of participating in the 11 September 2001 attacks, continued to face charges in the military commission system, in breach of international law and standards relating to fair trials, and could face the death penalty if convicted. The use of capital punishment in these cases, after proceedings that did not meet international standards, would constitute arbitrary deprivation of life. Prolonged plea negotiations for some of the remaining 30 detainees came to a stalemate in September after the Biden administration rejected conditions proposed by the five men facing trial for the 11 September 2001 attacks. As a result of the systemic use of torture, and due to the dysfunction and lack of fundamental fairness of the offshore commission system, the USA’s failure to hold anyone accountable for the 11 September attacks persisted.

Right to life and security of the person

At least 48,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists. Approximately 132 people died each day of 2022 from a firearm-related injury. Such violence was perpetuated by ongoing, virtually unfettered access to firearms, spurred by a surge in gun sales during the Covid-19 pandemic, a lack of comprehensive gun safety laws (including effective regulation of firearm acquisition, possession and use), and a failure to invest in adequate gun violence prevention and intervention programmes.

There were more than 650 incidents where four or more people were shot in 2023. In January, a man in Monterey Park, California, opened fire, killing 11 people and injuring nine at a Lunar New Year celebration. In March, a man killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. In April, a man in Cleveland, Texas, killed five people, including a nine-year-old boy, in a neighbour’s house after they complained about noise from him firing guns on his property. In May, a man killed eight people and wounded seven at a shopping mall in Dallas. These examples demonstrated the US government’s continued failure to enact evidence-based firearm regulations, undermining human rights across the country.

Following the passage of the first law regulating firearm possession in 2022, Congress failed to consider further firearm reform policies. As a result, President Biden announced the creation of the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention in September. The office will be overseen by the vice president and staffed with gun violence prevention experts.

Unlawful killings

The USA continued to use lethal force in countries around the world and withheld information regarding the legal and policy standards and criteria applied by US forces to the use of lethal force.

The administration persisted in its denial of well-documented cases of civilian deaths and harm, and failed to provide truth, justice and reparation for civilian killings in the past. Over the past decade, NGOs, UN experts and the media have documented potentially unlawful US drone strikes that have caused significant civilian harm, in some cases violating the right to life and amounting to extrajudicial executions. In September, the Biden administration established the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance system to compel US State Department officials to investigate and potentially penalize incidents when a US arms recipient is suspected of using US-made weapons to injure or kill civilians.

US-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions were used by the Israeli military in two deadly, unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip in October. These air strikes were either direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects or indiscriminate attacks and should be investigated as war crimes. The continued supply of munitions to Israel violates US laws and policies regarding the transfer and sale of arms, including its Conventional Arms Transfer Policy and Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which together are meant to prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to civilian harm and to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.³

After much urging by Amnesty International and others, the Department of Defense revised its Laws of War Manual to clarify that, when there is doubt about whether a potential target of lethal force is a civilian or a combatant, the law requires the military to assume that the target is a civilian. Previous military policy did not accurately characterize this principle and may have led to many of the civilian killings by US forces in recent years.

Right to a healthy environment

The USA was the largest exporter of liquified natural gas in the world between January and June. President Biden approved an oil drilling project in North Slope Alaska, which is anticipated to produce up to 180,000 barrels per day, igniting protests from environmental groups, and local and Indigenous communities. The president also prohibited new leasing on 10 million acres (4.05 million hectares) in Alaska’s 23 million-acre National Petroleum Reserve.

In April, the president pledged to contribute USD 1 billion to the Green Climate Fund. His 2024 budget proposal included “[USD] 4.3 billion in direct and indirect climate finance from State and USAID accounts and [USD] 1.4 billion in direct climate finance from Treasury accounts”. Despite these pledges, the USA’s climate finance contributions remained critically insufficient compared to its fair share.

In August, a Montana state court ruled for the first time that Montana’s pro-fossil fuel environmental policies had physically and mentally harmed 16 plaintiffs, aged five to 22, and had breached their constitutional right to a “clean and healthful environment”.⁴ The court struck down two state laws that prevented courts and agencies from considering the climate impacts of proposed projects.

The USA continued to supply the world with plastics manufactured from fossil fuels, and frontline communities bore the brunt of the impact, which disproportionately affected Black people, other racialized groups, low-income people and those with limited English proficiency. According to a 2021 report, the most recent year for which data was available, people living within three miles of petrochemical clusters earned 28% less than the average US household and were 67% more likely to be Black, Indigenous and racialized people. Exposure to pollutants emitted in the production of petrochemicals was linked to several health impacts commonly reported by frontline communities, especially among children, including high cancer rates, asthma and respiratory issues.

In May, a chemical fire erupted at the Shell Chemicals Deer Park Plant in Texas near the Houston Ship Channel, exacerbating community exposure to harmful pollutants. In August, Texas filed a lawsuit against Shell claiming that the chemical fire had caused environmental damage from airborne contaminants and waste that flowed into nearby waterways. The Houston Ship Channel has more than 400 petrochemical plants. A recent analysis of zip codes corresponding to life expectancy demonstrated that those living in the eastern Houston metropolitan area near the Channel could have a lower life expectancy of more than 15 years compared with those living in the more affluent western region.

United States of America