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Sweeping changes to staffing and policies in the Trump administration have “gutted” crucial monitoring and enforcement of civil rights laws in the US, according to new findings from Human Rights Watch.
“The federal government plays a unique and irreplaceable role in enforcing anti-discrimination laws,” Human Rights Watch said in its report released on Thursday. “In some cases, federal law is more comprehensive than state laws, and in some cases, Congress gave federal agencies sole jurisdiction to bring these legal actions.”
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The rights group conducted interviews with former federal government officials, reviewed court filings and other records, and spoke with community leaders and civil rights lawyers about the impact of the Trump administration’s pivot away from advocating for the rights of minorities, transgender individuals, and others.
The report comes amid high-profile court rulings, including by the US Supreme Court, that have upended decades-old legal provisions relied on for ensuring minorities have access to polls and are fairly represented in electoral districts.
Federal agencies that had departments devoted to investigating discrimination in the criminal justice system, housing, education, and employment have been largely gutted since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Human Rights Watch said.
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division lost three-quarters of its lawyers by early 2026, and dropped reform agreements it had secured with police in places like Louisville and Minneapolis. In nearly 70 cases nationally, the federal agency stopped work, dismissed, or reversed its supporting position for plaintiffs who alleged discrimination.
The Department of Education, which handles complaints based on federal law that bars discrimination in schools, laid off nearly half its staff in one day under the Trump administration, and closed seven of its 12 field offices. In the year before Trump took office, the department received a record number of complaints in which Black and Latino students alleged discrimination. Since Trump took office, it has resolved zero such cases.
Staffing also shrunk dramatically at the Housing and Urban Development Department’s division tasked with investigating racial discrimination in housing. The agency dropped at least 115 fair housing complaints without issuing any findings. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which handles civil discrimination complaints from workers in the private and public sectors, reached its lowest staffing levels in 40 years.
“The Trump administration is targeting efforts to address discrimination without offering any alternatives,” Trey Walk, US program researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “While claiming to protect all Americans, the administration is rolling back systems that communities have long turned to for relief.”
Human Rights Watch is one of several leading human rights groups that launched a recent lawsuit against the Trump administration’s campaign against the International Criminal Court. The lawsuit charges that the administration’s wide-ranging sanctions against the international tribunal and organisations that cooperate with it risk treading on the constitutional rights of US citizens and groups.
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