Trump’s ‘racist hate speech’ fuelling rights violations in US, UN panel says

A UN-backed panel of independent experts focusing on racial discrimination has said that racist hate speech by US President Donald Trump and other American political leaders, along with a crackdown on immigration in the United States, have led to “grave human rights violations”.The Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued its decision on Wednesday and urged the US to suspend immigration enforcement operations at, and near, schools, hospitals, and faith-based institutions.The decision, made under the committee’s early warning protocol, was not legally binding but seeks to hold a country - in this case, the United States - to its own international commitments.The committee said it also was “deeply disturbed” by the use of derogatory and dehumanising language around migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Committee members attributed a reported rise in racial discrimination to “racist hate speech” targeting those groups but did not point to any specific data. Besides speech, there was also concern about the impact of politicians and other public figures weaponising stereotypes to incite hate crimes and discrimination.Federal agents detain a protester in Minneapolis on February 3, 2026. Photo: AFP“Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the President,” the committee said in a news release, “may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes”.