U.S. President Trump’s policy agenda will compound suffering, threaten public health, and violate long-standing human rights protections, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today. Several executive actions signed by the president yesterday represent inhumane, unlawful, and dangerous developments that attack people seeking asylum and other migrants, while other new policies erode global health and public safety.
“Within mere hours the Trump administration is doubling down on ‘deterrence through cruelty,’ drastically expanding its campaign of targeting people seeking asylum in ways that threaten the health, rights, and wellbeing of all people in the United States,” said Michele Heisler, MD, MPA, medical director at PHR and professor of public health and internal medicine at the University of Michigan. “In the face of this clear regression, PHR and our nationwide medical network is mobilizing to document impacts and defend human rights.”
President Trump’s executive actions focused on immigration and asylum scale-up many of his inhumane and unlawful tactics from the first administration.
“Contrary to long-standing legal guarantees, the administration is attempting to completely ‘shut down’ the right to seek asylum,” said Dr. Heisler. “The right to seek asylum is a bedrock principle that requires a fair legal process and potential protections to families and individuals, including children, who are fleeing persecution. Slamming the door so that people seeking asylum are not able to have their claims heard defies international and national laws, in addition to placing people fleeing oppression at greater risk of violence or death.”
“The president also flouts 150 years of constitutional precedent around birthright citizenship, denying babies who are born in the United States their constitutional right to citizenship,” said Dr. Heisler.
“Even as yesterday’s executive orders already face legal challenges in the courts, they provoke a climate of fear amongst immigrants and those who care for them alike. This chilling effect will have dangerous consequences on communities across the country. We know that these moves will push families and communities into the shadows and deter many from accessing health care and other vital services. Pregnant women afraid of immigration enforcement at hospitals will forego safe delivery; people sick will be fearful to visit a doctor. Sadly, for this administration, cruelty seems to be the point, and fear the strategy,” said Dr. Heisler.
President Trump’s moves to drastically expand immigration enforcement will likely lead to an explosion of immigration detention, which PHR and partners’ research has shown to be rife with abuse, medical neglect, solitary confinement, and preventable deaths. These harms in the U.S. immigration detention system were present even before the drastically expanded demand for detention space likely to come as the second Trump administration prioritizes mass deportations.
Reports also suggest that the administration is again weaponizing public health measures to prevent access to asylum and that again separate families, both practices that PHR researchers have shown to result in severe and long-lasting impacts.
PHR further condemns the potential use of active-duty military troops to perform domestic immigration functions. This involvement would exacerbate the risk of rights violations, given the U.S. Department of Defense’s history of abusing foreign nationals in detention facilities.
Potential further actions to fulfill campaign promises will only scale up the suffering in the coming days.
“Mass deportations will also result in mass family separations,” said Katherine Peeler, MD, PHR medical advisor and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “Approximately 4.4 million U.S. children have undocumented parents. Deporting these community members will result in millions of family separations – or millions of unlawful removals of children who are U.S. citizens from the only country they’ve ever known. Either way, this would represent a health, humanitarian, and human rights disaster.”
Trump’s first day in office also featured other decisions that undermine global health and public safety, including withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) and rolling back needed reforms around police use of force.
“While the administration has clearly targeted asylum seekers and migrants in its Day One actions, the administration poses threats across a range of areas central to PHR’s mission: Public health, reproductive health and rights, police violence, and the United States’ support for the global human rights system,” said Dr. Heisler. “PHR’s medical network is mobilizing to meet these threats, support our communities, and defend human rights. Clinicians – with their unique skills, ethics, and platforms – have vital roles to play in meeting this moment.”
“The oath we take as clinicians does not only extend to individual patients nor are our responsibilities as clinicians confined within hospital and clinic walls. To practice ethically, to maintain the highest level of care for all of our patients, we must ensure they have access to that care, feel comfortable seeking that care, and trust us as their care providers. These executive orders are a serious threat to all aspects of that care, and we will always advocate for those who need us,” said Dr. Peeler.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.