
Will Trump’s Executive Order Require Americans to Carry ID or Face Arrest?
Among President Donald Trump’s slew of immigration-related executive orders signed in his first week is mention of an 80-year law that went largely unnoticed. In seeking to tighten border security, Trump invoked a rule requiring immigrants to carry identification proving their status — something civil-rights groups who spoke to Newsweek say is all but certain to end up with American citizens being detained by police.

Trump’s Guantanamo migrant plan evokes a dark history
The US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay is about to get a new chapter added to its notorious history. The facility in Cuba has long attracted the ire of human rights groups who accuse Washington of using it as an outpost outside the reach of US law to shield from scrutiny alleged abuses of the asylum process and in the war on terror. Now the base could have yet another new incarnation — playing a key role in President Donald Trump’s immigration blitz.

The struggle of incarcerated workers
California’s refusal to fairly compensate prison labor is an affront to our most basic principles of human dignity – one that now has direct consequences on hundreds of incarcerated firefighters. As wildfires continue to wreak havoc on Southern California, over 1,000 incarcerated firefighters have bravely risen to the occasion to contain the devastation. Their work on the front lines has garnered widespread attention, raising awareness of the systemic inequality that incarcerated workers face.

Ethiopia criticized for shutting down human rights groups in escalating crackdown
In a statement issued Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) condemned Ethiopian authorities for shutting down two prominent human rights organizations in recent weeks, deepening an ongoing crackdown against civil society. An Ethiopian government body overseeing civil society ordered a halt to the operations of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council and Ethiopian Human Rights Defenders Center in December 2024. This was based on allegations of lacking “independence” and “acting beyond their mandate”. The suspensions follow the Ethiopian government’s earlier decision to halt the operations of three other prominent human rights organizations, including the Center for the Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), and the Association for Human Rights in Ethiopia. While CARD and LHR briefly had their suspensions lifted on December 11, 2024, the ban was reinstated a few days later.