(Washington, DC) – The Trump administration’s omission of key sections and manipulation of certain countries’ rights abuses degrade and politicize the 2025 US State Department human rights report, Human Rights Watch said today. By undermining the credibility of the report, the administration puts human rights defenders at risk, weakens protections for asylum seekers, and undercuts the global fight against authoritarianism.
On August 12, 2025, the State Department released its “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” covering the year 2024. The report omits several categories of rights violations that were standard in past editions, including women, LGBT people, persons with disabilities, corruption in government, and freedom of peaceful assembly. The administration has also grossly mischaracterized the human rights records of abusive governments with which it has or is currently seeking friendly relations.
“The State Department’s new human rights report is in many places an exercise of whitewashing and deception,” said Sarah Yager, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. “Entire categories of abuses have been erased, while serious rights violations by allied governments have been papered over.”
The secretary of state is required to send Congress an annual report on the “human rights conditions” of countries and territories around the world. This year’s human rights report may strictly keep with the minimum statutory requirements but does not acknowledge the reality of widespread human rights violations against whole groups of people in many locations.
As a result, Congress now lacks a widely trusted, comprehensive tool from its own government to appropriately oversee US foreign policy and commit resources. Many of the sections and rights abuses that the report omits are extremely important to understanding the trends and developments of human rights globally, Human Rights Watch said.
On Israel, the State Department disregards the Israeli authorities’ mass forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, their use of starvation as a weapon of war, and their deliberate deprivation of water, electricity, medical aid, and other goods necessary for civilians’ survival, actions that amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. The State Department also fails to mention vast damage and destruction to Gaza’s essential infrastructure and the majority of homes, schools, universities, and hospitals.
The report is dishonest about abuses in some third countries to which the US is deporting people, stating that the US found “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses” in El Salvador, although they cite “reports” of extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearance, and mistreatment by police. The administration has transferred to El Salvador’s prisons, despite evidence of torture and other abuses.
The State Department glosses over the Hungarian government’s escalating efforts to undermine democratic institutions and the rule of law, including severe curbs on civil society and independent media, and abuses against LGBT people and migrants. It also fails to acknowledge that Russian authorities have widely used politically motivated imprisonment as a tool in their crackdown on dissent, and its prosecutions of individuals for “extremism” for their alleged affiliation with the LGBT movement.
Some sections of the report contain important information about growing attacks on human rights worldwide, including by drawing on reporting by the United Nations, civil society groups, and other human rights experts. However, many Trump administration policies contradict the report’s findings. In one example, the State Department notes serious abuses in South Sudan and Rwanda although the Trump administration has deported third-country nationals to South Sudan, and recently agreed to send 250 people to Rwanda.
The report says the human rights situations in Haiti and Venezuela are significantly worse than the previous year. In these countries, as well as in Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, numerous human rights abuses are being credibly reported, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other ill-treatment, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances, among other violations. In other words, the Trump administration is conceding these places are dangerous, while also terminating of temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Hondurans, Nepalese, and Haitians.
The State Department human rights report has been mandated in one form or another since 1974, under the US Foreign Assistance Act and related appropriations bills. The initial aim was to ensure that the US government did not aid governments that engage in “a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” Starting in the late 1970s, the State Department began documenting a broader range of violations —such as torture, political repression, and restrictions on press freedom —in nearly every country in the world, except the United States.
The annual human rights report has been an essential resource for US policymakers and legislators, and are routinely used or cited by academics, lawmakers, and officials assessing asylum claims, both in the US and elsewhere. The country reports, while not always comprehensive, have provided vital information about human rights abuses that policymakers could use to assess whether US assistance, arms sales, or trade agreements aligned with US values and legal standards, including those set by laws like the Foreign Assistance Act and the Leahy Laws.
They have also helped policymakers make decisions about whether and how to hold foreign governments accountable, including guiding sanctions decisions and supporting at-risk populations.
For many human rights defenders, especially those in closed societies, public reporting by the US government of abuses has lent credibility to their cause and offered some protection from their own repressive governments. In past years, the report dignified victims and informed US policymakers but also supported diplomatic engagements in foreign policy.
The human rights report has been used in US asylum court cases to show that an asylum seeker could not be returned to a country where similarly situated people were being persecuted. That essential resource for keeping people safe is not only no longer reliable or helpful, but in some cases could put people at risk by denying abuses in places where the United States or other countries intend to deport asylum seekers and immigrants.
“The State Department’s human rights report has long provided a strong, if too frequently ignored, basis for US support for the global human rights movement,” Yager said. “The Trump administration has now turned much of the report into a weapon that makes autocrats seem more palatable and minimizes the human rights abuses happening in those places.”