Human Rights Record of the United States in 2018

JUNE

June 1

The San Francisco Chronicle website reported that three women had filed a sexual-assault lawsuit in federal court against renowned film producer Harvey Weinstein.

June 5

The Guardian website reported that the United Nations had urged the United States to immediately halt its controversial practice of separating asylum-seeking Central American children from their parents at the southern border. The UN human rights office said it was deeply concerned over the zero tolerance policy introduced by the US government to deter illegal immigration, noting that the practice of separating families amounted to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life and was a serious violation of the rights of the child. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokeswoman of the UN human rights office, said: "The use of immigration detention and family separation as a deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and principles. The US should immediately halt this practice." She expressed regret that the United States was the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN convention on the rights of the child and urged it to hold children's rights in high regard.

June 6

The National Alliance to End Homelessness website reported that African Americans represented 13 percent of the general population but made up more than 40 percent of the homeless population. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders accounted for 0.2 percent of the general population but 1.3 percent of the homeless population.

June 7

A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that suicide rates in the US have risen nearly 30 percent since 1999 and nearly half of people who died by suicide had a known mental health condition.

On the same day, The New York Times website reported that only one officer had faced prison time as of late 2017 in 15 high-profile cases involving deaths of black people.

June 8

The Houston Chronicle reported that Texas Republican senator Joan Huffman had used her influence to try to halt investigation into a bar she owned.

June 15

The Associated Press reported that Department of Homeland Security figures showed that 1,995 minors were separated from their families at the US southern border between April 19 and May 31, 2018.

June 19

The USA Today website reported that 17-year-old unarmed black teenager Antwon Rose was shot multiple times and killed after fleeing from a car stopped by police. Reggie Shuford, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said officers seemed to have disregarded the basic humanity of this boy when they chose to use lethal force.

On the same day, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced at a joint news conference that the United States was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council. The move came one day after the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights slammed the separation of children from their parents at the US-Mexico border.

June 23

The Guardian website reported that United Nations human rights experts said US policy of detaining children may amount to torture. The report also said there are 2,300 babies and kids who were ripped away from their parents by the government in detention centers around the United States, calling the policy "functional equivalent in kidnapping."

June 25

The Guardian website reported that Latino man Esteban Guzman was racially abused in California by a white woman, who pointed her finger in Guzman's face and called Mexicans "rapists, animals, drug dealers". The language closely echoed abusive words used by some US politicians against Mexicans.

June 28

A gunman opened fire in the newsroom of Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, killing five people and injuring two others in what police called a "targeted attack" on the newspaper. It was the most violent crime targeting media staff in several decades in the United States.

The Chicago Tribune website reported that 575 protesters, most of whom were women, were arrested in their mass demonstration in Washington against US immigration policy.

June 29

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) reported that new data showed "hate crime totals for the 10 largest cities rose for four straight years to the highest level in a decade". The report said racially-motivated crimes had comprised nearly 60 percent of overall crimes and African Americans remained the most targeted group.

The Guardian reported that jailhouses and prison cells across the US were so appallingly managed that imprisoned women were trafficked out of criminal justice institutions into illegal captivity, forced into sex trade under the control of narcotics and brutal beatings, and trapped in an endless loop of criminalization and exploitation.

June 30

Hundreds of thousands of people joined the "Families Belong Together" march to protest the US government's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, which had led to the separation of at least 2,300 children from their parents. In Los Angeles alone, more than 10,000 people took to the street in protest.

JULY

July 11

The website of the US Department of Justice reported that Eric Scott Kindley, a former prisoner transport officer, was indicted on a charge of crimes related to his sexual assaults of females in his custody and possessing his firearm in furtherance of the sexual assaults on multiple occasions, causing serious physical and mental injuries to the victims.

July 12

The USA Today website reported that secret donors financed more than four out of every 10 television ads that outside groups broadcast in 2018 to influence congressional elections. Two groups accounted for more than one-quarter of the House and Senate advertising from groups that don't disclose their donors. An analysis found a 26-percent increase in airings by similar "dark money" groups in federal races since the 2014 midterms.

On the same day, the USA Today website reported that 32 percent of US households are cost burdened and housing is a basic need that is becoming increasingly difficult to meet in the United States. According to "The State of the Nation's Housing 2018", a report compiled by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, there is a serious shortage of affordable housing in the United States. Housing has become unaffordable for millions of Americans, particularly those in lower-and middle-income brackets.

July 17

An article by US Senator Bernie Sanders said that the United States has more income and wealth inequality than at any time since the 1920s. As the US middle class continues to collapse, it was reported that 40 percent of US citizens lack $400 in disposable income to pay for an unexpected expense like a medical emergency. In the country, 43 percent of households live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to pay for their housing, food, child care, healthcare, transportation and their cell phone without going into debt. About half of older US citizens have no retirement savings. In terms of US young people, hundreds of thousands are unable to go to college because of the cost.

July 21

The NBC News website reported that the US Treasury Department announced that it will no longer require most nonprofit organizations to report their donors to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Previously nonprofits had to report the name of donors who gave them more than $5,000 per year to the IRS. This new policy will make elections less transparent, resulting in a rise of so-called "dark money" in political campaigns.

July 26

The USA Today website reported that according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, an estimated one in four children in the United States experience maltreatment at some point in their lives. In an appalling criminal case in Michigan, five young children, including one with cancer, were locked in what a local police officer described as a "dungeon" and whipped for punishment on and off for at least six years.

July 27

The Los Angeles Times website reported that a Pakistani was mistaken for an extremist and had been detained without trial at the US military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for almost 14 years, having withstood a lot of torture which had caused serious physical and mental trauma.