The Department of State (DOS) is Congressionally mandated to issue Human Rights Reports (Reports) on every country each year. Ordinarily these reports are issued in the early spring, but this year, the reports were not released until August.
Even before the Reports were released, there were media reports such as this one by NPR stating that DOS intended to “streamline” the Reports and, among other things, “remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process.” In addition to this overall “streamlining” DOS made the decision to fully cut reporting on LGBTQ issues and issues specific to women and gender-based violence. After the Reports’ release, NPR reported that two thirds of content was cut from the Reports. Independent Human Rights organizations such as: Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, and the UK-based Asylos, have been openly critical of the politicization of these important reports. The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies also has resources on countering the reliability of the “streamlined” Reports including an expert declaration by Scott Busby which can be accessed on the CGRS website.
The National Immigration Project has created comparison charts for several key countries. In these Reports, we compare the last version of the Report, 2023, issued by DOS under the Biden administration with the most recent version of the Report, 2024, issued by DOS under the Trump administration. As discussed above, the Reports have been greatly reduced in length and detail, with important issue areas eliminated. While the Board of Immigration Appeals has generally found these Reports to be “reliable” Matter of S-Y-G-, 24 I&N Dec. 247, 256 (BIA 2007); Matter of T-M-B-, 21 I&N Dec. 775, 779 (BIA 1997), our hope is that practitioners can include these charts with their asylum and protection-claim immigration court filings to alert immigration judges to the fact that these Reports are no longer as reliable as they were in the past, and to preserve this issue for appeal. Ultimately, if these Reports are no longer reliable, they should not play a key role in the Executive Office for Immigration Review’s determination of country conditions in asylum and other protection claims.