Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center

09/02/2026

Laura Berlin wanted to know who was profiting from ICE’s deportation machine. So she built a public database mapping the companies working with ICE.

The U.S. government labeled her website "a tool for domestic terrorism."

Exposing how taxpayer dollars fuel immigration detention and a system that has enabled enforced disappearances is protected speech under the First Amendment. But this administration has made it abundantly clear that it is not interested in following the law.

A Texas stay-at-home mom created a website showing companies profiting from ICE. It led to hundreds of protests. Feds called the site a "national threat."

09/01/2026

ICE has dramatically expanded its use of 24-hour GPS monitoring, subjecting nearly 50,000 people to constant electronic surveillance. Our clients report burns, shocks and bruises, losing jobs because of the stigma of ankle monitors, and living with the constant fear that a malfunction could lead to detention.

Meanwhile, the private prison giant GEO Group is profiting from these abuses. The Trump admin has been paying the company to expand this surveillance system, turning immigration enforcement into another revenue stream.

That’s why, this past June, we filed a lawsuit alongside Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and Zuckerman Spaeder LLP to end ICE’s blanket requirement for continuous GPS monitoring.
🔗 More about our lawsuit: rekhrc.org/3SmhFq3

In a new The New York Times letter to the editor, our U.S. Senior Staff Attorney Sarah Decker and Amica Center’s Managing Attorney F. Evan Benz expose the human cost of ICE’s ankle-monitor expansion and the private prison profits behind it. Read their letter ⬇️.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/opinion/ice-ohio-hatians.html

Readers react to the crackdown on Haitians in Ohio, who are being forced to wear G.P. S. ankle monitors. Also: Democrats rebranding; Trump’s Lake Ontario effect.

08/31/2026

Last week, we visited Belém do Pará to meet with journalists and media workers reporting on environmental issues across the Amazon region. We heard about the risks they face in bringing stories from the region to the world.

One of those outlets we met, Amazônia Real, is fighting to keep that vital journalism alive. The agency is at risk of closing in 2027 and has launched an urgent campaign to raise R$300,000 to sustain its reporting and rebuild its network of local journalists.

🚨🚨 Please consider supporting Amazônia Real and help ensure these stories continue to be told: https://amazoniareal.com.br/apoie-a-cobertura-da-amazonia-real/

08/31/2026

ICE continues to detain pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women, despite a binding agency directive stating they should not be detained absent extraordinary circumstances. Our new practice advisory provides a roadmap for attorneys and advocates seeking the release of their clients or loved ones.

If you’re an attorney: Use the advisory to help advocate for your client and consider joining us in this work.

If you’re a family member: If your loved one is detained and pregnant, postpartum, or nursing, share this resource with their attorney or an immigration advocate.

🔗 Read the advisory and access the template petition here: rekhrc.org/4gJ84Sj

08/27/2026

I’m in Belém do Pará, Brazil, in the Amazon region with our staff from Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center for an extraordinary event organized by the Vladimir Herzog Institute.

We’re here in dialogue with journalists, and media workers covering the Amazon region on environmental issues, including threats from the illegal logging industry.

We’ll be sharing more updates from our trip in the coming days. Thank you Instituto Vladimir Herzog for brining us together.

08/27/2026

The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is known for its abysmal conditions, including rotten food, non-potable drinking water, widespread abuse, and medical neglect. An ICE spokesperson, however, claimed that “being in detention is a choice.”

Our U.S. Sr. Staff Attorney Sarah Decker spoke to KATC-TV 3: Acadiana's Newschannel about conditions inside the facility: “Being in detention is never a choice. Many of our clients face persecution, torture, or death in their home countries. The idea that they can simply self-deport is a fallacy.”

Sarah also said the response from ICE is “part of their culture of total impunity for these abuses.” Last year, we sent a letter to DHS detailing the abuses at Basile and calling for an immediate investigation. They have yet to respond.

🔗 Read our full letter here: https://rekhrc.org/4xjpiwp

https://www.katc.com/news/detained-at-basile-family-advocates-concerned-about-conditions-at-south-louisiana-ice-processing-center

An Office of Professional Responsibility report shows the detention center was inspected in March. It notes that some detainees expressed dissatisfaction with the facility’s medical services and food. Yet, found that medical services were adequate.

08/26/2026

"If freedom is to be meaningful, independence must be accompanied by the desire to forge a nation patterned upon the people's desires. Otherwise, freedom can be meaningless in its motives and futile in its operation." - Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

08/25/2026

Nine years ago, the Myanmar military unleashed a brutal genocidal campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority. More than 700,000 people were driven from their homes, villages were burned, families were separated, and thousands were killed.

I saw the aftermath firsthand when I visited Myanmar and Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh in 2018. I returned to the refugee camps again last year, and what struck me most was how little had changed in the decade between.

Families are still living in small, makeshift huts, many of them overflowing with water during the monsoon season. Children are growing up with virtually no access to education. And parents are struggling to find enough food and health care to keep their families safe.

And now, after nearly a decade, drastic aid cuts are making these conditions even worse. More than one million Rohingya remain in Bangladesh, while violence in Myanmar continues to drive people across the border.

Governments must stop treating this crisis as yesterday’s news. They must hold Myanmar’s military leaders accountable, impose targeted sanctions and a global arms embargo, increase aid contributions, and protect Rohingya refugees from forced return, trafficking, and ongoing violence.

Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center joined 70 organizations in calling for justice and overdue accountability for these atrocities. 🔗 Read our full statement here: rekhrc.org/3UgMpJy

08/25/2026

The Rohingya have waited far too long for justice and a dignified return to their homeland. World leaders must act now.

🔗 More information: https://rekhrc.org/4gR6sHd

08/19/2026

The U.S. government has a legal obligation to keep records and report statistics on how many pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women are jailed in ICE detention. But the government isn’t following the law.

Read the horrifying accounts we heard from some of these women ➡️ https://rekhrc.org/4g7Hnrp