The recently released U.S. Department of State Human Rights Reports have stirred significant controversy about notable cuts in length and issue coverage, delayed release, and perceived bias, particularly on countries like Hungary, Brazil and South Africa. 

Equally concerning is the disconnect between migration policy and the reports’ coverage of countries like Haiti, Ukraine and Afghanistan and the unduly rosy reporting of countries like El Salvador. Each case highlights this troubling inconsistency, as well as the willingness to deport people to dangerous situations, and — more broadly — a significant divergence from American foreign policy.

The State Department should seriously review the concerns voiced by journalists and democracy defenders about the mischaracterization of human rights situations in countries aligned with the U.S. and those with which tensions exist.

The Department of Homeland Security should carefully review those past or pending deportation cases to highly insecure countries. Given its important oversight responsibility, Congress should investigate whether deported migrants face life-threatening situations due to U.S. deportation, since that would be both inhumane and counter to America’s democratic values. 

The inconsistency between U.S. human rights reporting and immigration policy is most clearly seen in efforts to lift protective designations such as temporary protected status for certain foreign nationals in the United States. This provisional legal classification is granted when a home country is considered temporarily unsafe or unable to “adequately” handle the return of its nationals. 

Haitians initially received temporary protected status due to a 2010 natural disaster, followed by extensions triggered by extreme security conditions which make return unsafe. The Human Rights Report found that the human rights situation there “worsened significantly” because of “the lack of state capacity to protect civilians from expanding gang violence and individuals’ decreasing rights in areas such as freedom of expression.” 

Nevertheless, the administration recently sought to lift temporary protected status for Haitians and has terminated the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela Parole Program that allowed some nationals from those four countries to legally enter and work in the United States temporarily. The courts blocked the effort to remove Haitians’ temporary protected status, but the Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela Parole Program termination was allowed to proceed. The administration’s position on these programs illustrates a troubling gap between the reports and humanitarian immigration policy.

Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced in May that the United States would rescind temporary protected status for Afghan nationals, many of whom supported U.S. objectives in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” Noem argued in determining that the conditions “no longer meet the statutory requirements” for temporary protected status. 

But the Human Rights Report stated that there was “significant deterioration in respect for women’s rights during the year” and that Taliban members “reportedly killed persons in retaliation for their association with the pre-August 2021 government.”

This is particularly concerning for those Afghans who served U.S. interests and face a heightened threat of retaliation upon return. Leaving aside the moral argument against sending back Afghans who helped the U.S., the State Department’s report makes the case that deporting them would place them in grave danger. 

Similarly, Ukrainians who have fled the brutal Russian war were granted a temporary humanitarian status due to the war. The administration withdrew this status which means over 120,000 Ukrainians will be forced to return to their homeland during an active war if they lack an existing asylum request.

Of additional concern is the U.S. deportation of migrants to third countries that have deeply problematic human rights records as clearly delineated in the Human Rights Reports, such as South Sudan, Rwanda and Eswatini.

In the case of El Salvador, whose president is a close partner in the administration’s deportation efforts, the State Department assessments diverged from widespread evidence by respected sources that there are major human rights violations, including against children. The country report states that there are “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses,” raising questions about its credibility. 

While deporting people from the United States is within the purview of any American administration and removing people with criminal records is standard policy, sending these individuals to countries where they may face significant abuse and danger is a troubling divergence from traditional U.S. standards and simple decency. So is cutting deals and providing U.S. financial and/or political support to problematic regimes and leaders who host deportees but are also sanctioned by the United States, as is the case with South Sudanese leader Benjamin Bol Mel. 

Historically a powerful tool in American policymaking, the Human Rights Reports have traditionally provided an objective source to inform foreign and domestic policy, reflect American values, and project American democratic global leadership. Immigration enforcement, including removals, is a necessary component of immigration policy. But it should not undermine American values and foreign policy objectives. 

Any distance between American human rights standards and our handling of migration policy undermines American values and the United States’ position in the world. It also damages America’s credibility and ability to secure its interests globally at a time where these interests are threatened by global competitors. 

Nicole Bibbins Sedaca is the Kelly and David Pfeil Fellow at the George W. Bush Institute. Laura Collins is Director of the George W. Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute.

In January 2024, Ann Arbor Public Schools became the first public school district in the country to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

Regardless of one’s stance on the conflict, the resolution marked a troubling shift: A public K-12 school district was taking an official position on a deeply divisive geopolitical issue.

As a parent advocate in Ann Arbor concerned about my children’s schools providing an inclusive and high quality education, I was struck not only by the content of the resolution but by the precedent it set — one that risks politicizing our classrooms and alienating families.

What we have seen in K-12 education in the last several years mirrors the ideological shifts on college campuses, in which institutions of higher learning promote specific politicized viewpoints to both the student body and the outside world. 

To counter the growing trend of universities taking official positions on a wide variety of divisive social and political issues particularly after Oct. 7, 2023, a number of leading universities, including the University of Michigan, Northwestern University and the University of Pennsylvania finally embraced the principle of institutional neutrality first articulated in the 1967 Kalven Report at the University of Chicago.

These institutions now recognize that taking official stances on controversial political or social issues undermines academic freedom and chills open inquiry. Instead, they have now committed to remaining neutral with the goal of improving their ability to allow diverse viewpoints to flourish.

As the Kalven Report posited, “the university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”

In the K-12 context, neutrality is even more essential. K-12 students are still forming their understanding of the world.

When a school district, administrator or teacher takes a political stance, it risks pushing impressionable young minds to conform, stifling freedom of thought and marginalizing dissenting voices. 

The San Francisco District agrees: “When at work, [district] employees hold a unique position of influence of students in their care, and this influence is a privilege.” 

When teachers take political positions, it can undermine the ability of students to develop critical thinking skills, distract from building core educational skills and lead to declines in academic outcomes. 

As my colleague David Bernstein explained, “When U.S. K-12 schools invest valuable time and resources into politicizing the classroom … actual educational outcomes suffer.” 

According to the most recent Nation’s Report Card, reading proficiency scores for U.S. students in grades four and eight have declined since 2019 with 69 percent of fourth and 70 percent of eighth graders performing below proficient levels.

Not only is neutrality a wise academic practice, it is also legally sound. Public schools, as government institutions, are entitled to limit educators’ speech in the classroom to serve the greater good of academic focus.

As the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country, rightly points out, “When the government is a public school or university, it has broad authority to limit educators’ speech on the job as well as to limit speech off the job that directly impacts the workplace.” 

And unlike universities, where students are there by choice, K-12 schoolchildren are there by law.

As the Supreme Court recently explained in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority of K-12 children attend public, government-run schools “either by choice or necessity.” And, as public institutions, these schools must not take sides. 

Just as our constitutional principles resist religious indoctrination in schools, so too should we resist ideological indoctrination. 

A K-12 school system that adopts institutional neutrality empowers parents to advocate for policies that keep schools focused on education, not activism. 

This is not about silencing discussion. On the contrary, neutrality creates the conditions for genuine dialogue by ensuring that no single viewpoint is institutionally endorsed. It affirms that schools exist to educate, not indoctrinate.

Across the country, in places like San Francisco and Chicago, parents and school leaders are waking up to the dangers of politicized classrooms.They know we must continue demanding schools return to their core mission: educating, not indoctrinating. 

By organizing around shared values of freedom, opportunity, inclusion and unity, we can restore trust in public education and ensure that every child is taught how to think, not what to think. 

Institutional neutrality isn’t just a policy, it’s a promise to our children that their schools will be inclusive places of learning, not battlegrounds of ideology. The future of our democracy depends on it.

Sharon Ceresnie Sorkin is the director of Community Engagement at North American Values Institute.

We are all familiar with the cliche “be careful what you wish for.” Of course, cliches become cliches because, more often than not, they are proven true or serve as indicators of regularly repeating patterns.

Of late, there is growing speculation that President Trump and the Republican Party would “love it” if far-left, socialist, anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdani were elected mayor of New York City in November. This is true for some Republicans, for sure. For Trump, I doubt it.

In an article this week on this site titled “Trump tied in knots by Mamdani questions in New York,” the question arose: How best for Trump and the GOP to handle Mamdani should he win? The consensus seems to be that if Mamdani wins, Trump would then want to pound him nonstop over the next year as an “out-of-touch socialist” who personifies the failing policies Democrats seek to inflict upon the nation.

Ultimately, I don’t see Trump taking that route. It would add oxygen to a growing far-left populist narrative that not only pushes “free is for me” but that the wealthy are to blame for the plight of the poor and disenfranchised and therefore must be taxed at the highest rate possible as punishment for their “sins against the people.”

Political history shows us time and again that “free is for me” and “the wealthy are responsible for what ails you” has always worked to some degree with certain constituencies. Not only does Trump know that, but he understands that the far-left populist Mamdani is getting better with his messaging and will be aided if the president and the GOP make him the face of the left. It is much better, then, to attack his failed policies rather than elevate him to mythical status.

To this point, while I have long been a fan of former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, I take issue with something she recently said on Fox News. Speculating about the possible election of Mamdani, McEnany said, “For the sake of New York City, you absolutely do not want this to happen. But for the Republican Party, what a foil this would be.”

Again, for me, this comes down to “be careful what you wish for.” If one were writing a strategy paper for Republicans, an obvious tactic would be to vilify Mamdani while making him the face of the Democratic Party going forward. But such a strategy would overlook or underestimate two critically important realities.

The first is that much of the mainstream media is still in the tank for the Democrats. That acknowledged, current events this week demonstrated why one party controlling most of the national narrative is never a good idea. The latest example is the disgusting and ghoulish comments by some in the liberal media associated with the assassination of Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk. Next is the “nothing to see here” way the media has largely ignored the shocking videotaped murder of a young female Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, N.C.

The left never pays the full price for its errors because it has a vise-like grip on most major media. As I write this, the narrative from the left’s noise machine is once again turning back against Trump and the Republican Party.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who follows power and politics. As I have stressed in the past, over the last five decades, the left has taken majority control over what I call the “five megaphones of our nation” — the media, academia, entertainment, science and medicine.

Republicans need to understand that come 2026 and 2028, that will still be the case. If they don’t get it, I can assure them that Mamdani, his team and the Democrats do and have that reality baked into every strategy. 

The next potentially growing attraction of the “Mamdani effect” is that historically many poor, working-class or disenfranchised people will vote for the candidate promising a “chicken in every pot” while simultaneously ignoring his or her failed policies in order to blame the “wealthy.” Making Mamdani the foil and the face of the Democrats risks awakening millions of struggling Americans to the “free is for me” grift.

At the moment, a number of powerful voices in the Democratic Party are still tiptoeing around Mamdani and his socialist message. However, if he not only wins in a big way in November, but there is evidence that his socialist policies would travel quite well out of New York City, those leaders — purely for self-serving reasons — would begin to embrace Mamdani and his movement.

The Republican Party may be “thrilled” to have Mamdani as a foil. But don’t forget, “Be careful what you wish for” became a cliche for a reason.

Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.

“Prove me wrong.”

For years, that tagline of Charlie Kirk and his group, Turning Point USA, enraged many on the left. In “an age of rage,” nothing is more triggering for the perpetually angry than an invitation to debate issues.

Indeed, someone has now killed him for it.

What is most chilling about the assassination is that it was not in the slightest degree surprising. This follows two attempted assassinations of President Trump and the killing of a pair of Minnesota politicians.

I heard of the assassination in Prague as I prepared to speak about the age of rage and the growing attacks on free speech. I was profoundly saddened by the news. I knew Charlie and respected his effort to challenge the orthodoxy on college campuses. We all have received regular death threats (and Charlie more than most), but there is still a hope that even the most deranged will leave these threats at the ideation rather than the action stage.

This killer left Charlie’s wife, Erika, and her two young children as the latest victims of senseless violence against someone who refused to be silenced. 

We do not have to know much about the shooter to recognize the rage. The person who killed Charlie did not view him as a father or even as a person. That is the transformative, enabling effect of rage.

In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about rage and the uncomfortable truth for many engaging in rage rhetoric: “What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts, flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths. Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. … Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”

Charlie was brave, and he was brash. He refused to yield to the threats while encouraging others to speak out on our campuses.

He was particularly hated for holding a mirror to the face of higher education, exposing the hate and hypocrisy on our campuses. For decades, faculty have purged their ranks of conservatives and libertarians. Faced with the intolerance of most schools, polls show that a large percentage of students hide their values to avoid retaliation from faculty or their fellow students.

Charlie chose to change all that. TPUSA challenges people to engage and debate them. The response from some on the left has been to trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently, at UC Davis, police stood by and watched as a TPUSA tent was torn apart.

Charlie is only the latest such victim, and he is unlikely to be the last.

For months, some of us have warned about the rise in rage rhetoric. Some believe that they can ride a wave of rage back into power. House Minority Leader Hakeem  Jeffries (D., N.Y.) has called for people to take to the streets to save democracy and posted a picture of himself brandishing a baseball bat.

Likewise, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.”

Various radical groups welcome such rage rhetoric, particularly Antifa. The most violent anti-free speech group in the U.S., Antifa has long attacked journalists and others with opposing views. In his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Professor Mark Bray noted that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists. … From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”

Alleged shooter Tyler Robinson, 22, reportedly left telltale Antifa markings on evidence, including marking bullets inscribed with the lyrics: “Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Bella Ciao, Ciao, Ciao”(from an Italian anti-fascist anthem) and “Hey, fascist! Catch!”

I previously testified in Congress about the dangers of Antifa, and I discuss the group in my book. Despite such warnings, Democratic leaders have dismissed those dangers or actually embraced Antifa.

Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison (D), now Minnesota’s attorney general, previously celebrated how Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. Liberal sites sell Antifa items to celebrate the violent group, including onesies for “Antifa babies.”

Some politicians have privately expressed alarm at the rising violent speech in their ranks. One Democratic member told Axios, “Some of [our supporters] have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.”

Protesters are burning cars and dealerships. Even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police. Some on the left have rolled out guillotines and chanted, “We got the guillotine, you better run.”

Just before he was shot at Utah Valley University, Kirk rallied the group with its signature chant of “prove me wrong.” Someone responded by killing him.

Of course, the murder proved nothing except that senseless hate is sweeping over our country. Someone preferred to kill Kirk rather than engage with him or others who held opposing views.

It is precisely the lack of debate and dialogue that has triggered this type of violence. For those dwelling deep in the hardened silos of our news and social media, dissenting voices become increasingly intolerable.

Charlie is still exposing that hypocrisy. As I prepared to address Charlie’s murder in Prague, anti-free speech groups were already using his murder to justify even greater limits on free speech to combat hate and disinformation. This is the ultimate dishonoring of his life and his legacy. Charlie died in the fight for free speech, challenging speech codes and censorship.

Greater censorship will not make political violence less likely; it will only make the likelihood of another Charlie Kirk less likely. Europe shows that extremists flourish under speech controls. The neo-Nazis are having a banner year in portraying themselves as victims.

It is the rest of us that are deterred by speech codes. According to polling, only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Fifty-nine percent of Germans do not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. Only 17 percent feel free to express themselves on the internet.

Charlie was hated because he exposed the left’s intolerance of opposing views … all in the purported cause of achieving greater tolerance. By challenging others to debate, he triggered a generation of speech-phobics who are more interested in silencing others than speaking on their own account.

Charlie was hated for stripping away the pretense and self-delusion of those canceling, blacklisting, and attacking others for holding opposing views. He did so by standing in harm’s way.

The conservatives that Kirk coaxed out of the shadows can honor his memory by showing that they will not be silenced. They can step forward and renew his same challenge: “Prove me wrong.”

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

President Trump reupped his call for NATO members to stop buying Russian oil amid a wider sanctions push in hopes of forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt the war in Ukraine. 

The president said Saturday morning he is “ready” to impose “major” sanctions on Russia when other NATO nations do the same — and when all of them halt their purchases of Moscow’s oil. 

“As you know, NATO’S commitment to WIN has been far less than 100 percent, and the purchase of Russian Oil, by some, has been shocking! It greatly weakens your negotiating position, and bargaining power, over Russia,” the president wrote on Truth Social. 

“Anyway, I am ready to ‘go’ when you are. Just say when? I believe that this, plus NATO, as a group, placing 50 percent to 100 percent TARIFFS ON CHINA, to be fully withdrawn after the WAR with Russia and Ukraine is ended, will also be of great help in ENDING this deadly, but RIDICULOUS, WAR,” he added. 

Trump indicated in a Friday “Fox and Friends” interview that his patience with the Russian leader is “running out fast.”

Also on Friday, Canada hosted a meeting of G7 finance ministers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reiterated Trump’s call for G7 nations to slap tariffs on countries buying Russian oil if they are “truly committed” to ending the three-and-a-half-year conflict in Eastern Europe. 

Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also welcomed “commitments” to increase sanctions pressure and “explore using immobilized Russian sovereign assets to further benefit Ukraine’s defense.” 

“Only with a unified effort that cuts off the revenues funding Putin’s war machine at the source will we be able to apply sufficient economic pressure to end the senseless killing,” Bessent and Greer said in a joint statement. 

“Thanks to President Trump’s bold leadership, the United States has already taken dramatic action against the purchasers of Russian oil,” the two officials added. “We are encouraged by the assurances of our fellow G7 nations that they are committed to ending this war, and we are hopeful that they will join us in taking decisive action at this critical time.”

The president’s push for cutting oil purchases and sanctions talks comes as the deadline for a potential meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has passed. 

Russia has shown no signs of slowing down its military operation, continuing to shell Ukraine with aerial attacks.

The Kremlin said on Friday that negotiations with Ukraine are on “pause,” less than a month after Trump met with Putin in Alaska. 

Trump said Saturday morning that China has a strong grip over Russia and that tariffs will “break that grip.” 

“This is not TRUMP’S WAR (it would never have started if I was President!), it is [former President] Biden’s and Zelenskyy’s WAR. I am only here to help stop it, and save thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives (7,118 lives lost last week, alone. CRAZY!),” the president wrote. “If NATO does as I say, the WAR will end quickly, and all of those lives will be saved! If not, you are just wasting my time, and the time, energy, and money of the United States.” 

GOP senators are urging Trump to allow a vote on a Russia sanctions package after the Kremlin’s incursion into Polish airspace this week, a strong escalation.

“I think it’s time for the sanctions bill to come to the floor,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) told The Hill this week. “I think the president’s got to make the final call on that, so I respect that, but I’m ready to vote for that.”

President Trump met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on Friday, days after Israel struck Doha in hopes of killing Hamas leaders. 

The White House confirmed the two leaders had dinner late Friday in New York, but did not offer further details. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff was also attended the dinner.

“Great dinner with POTUS,” Qatar’s deputy chief of mission, Hamah Al-Muftah, said late Friday on social platform X. “Just ended !” 

On Tuesday, Israel launched an assassination strike against the Palestinian militant group’s political leadership in Qatar, killing five of the group’s members and a member of Qatar’s internal security force. 

Trump said he was not happy with the strike, which was condemned by nearly all nations in the Middle East and some European countries. 

Al-Thani’s dinner with Trump and Witkoff came hours after the Qatari prime minister met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President Vance at the White House. 

Trump earlier this week expressed his frustration with the strike during a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterating he wants “peace,” the White House said.

Shortly after the attack, al-Thani vowed to retaliate against Israel. 

“The state of Qatar is committed to act in a decisive way with anything that would target its territories and will reserve the right to retaliate and will take all the needed measures to retaliate,” al-Thani said. 

The Qatari prime minister said on Thursday that Israeli strikes on Hamas leaders in Doha “killed any hope” of freeing hostages from the Gaza Strip.

Qatar is a key mediator in the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas, designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government, regarding releasing the hostages and the plan for the war-torn enclave following the conflict. 

Rubio traveled to Israel this weekend amid these rising tensions.