The international rights group said: "America's decision to quit the council, is because of the council’s perceived bias against Israel and a lack of institutional credibility, but the departure symbolizes a retreat from leadership on human rights abroad, at a time when human rights conditions at home are also drawing sharp criticisms.
The US has also sought to increase the number of immigrants detained by requesting additional funding to increase enforcement and increase the capacity of immigration detention centers / facilities.
In a recent joint report, Human Rights Watch demonstrated the fatal consequences of systemic inadequate and substandard medical care in immigration detention centers. The administration’s budget cuts would put even more people at risk in immigration detention, including small children and families.
The Trump administration has also sought to scale-back voting rights and disparage peaceful protest, contending that football players who kneel during the national anthem “shouldn’t be in the country.”
Instead of addressing rights violations linked to national security, Trump signed an executive order to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open and nominated Gina Haspel, who was closely involved in US government-sponsored torture and the destruction of evidence documenting it, to direct the Central Intelligence Agency.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced last week the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Human Rights Council, the UN’s top human rights body.
The US administration accused the UNHRC of hypocrisy and harshly denounced the 47-nation body as biased against the Tel Aviv regime.
The UN Human Rights Council was established in 2006 and Washington joined in 2009 after President Barack Obama came to power. Since President Donald Trump took office in 2017, the US has quit the UN cultural agency UNESCO, cut UN funding and announced its withdrawal from the UN-backed Paris climate agreement , as well as Iran's nuclear deal.
