Introduction In recent years, local and state governments in Washington have taken important legislative and executive action to protect vulnerable residents from rights abuses. Many of these actions, such as the so-called “sanctuary” laws of Keep Washington Working (2019) and Courts Open to All (2020) Acts, seek to protect the rights of migrants by limiting

This report is part of a series of research reports by the University of Washington Center for Human Rights examining Immigration and Customs Enforcement Air Operations nationwide.  Download additional resources and one pagers: Haiti: Sports Travel & U.S. Deportation of Haitian Asylum-Seekers Syracuse University & Haitian Deportations Texas Universities & Haitian Deportations Introduction Every week,

The UWCHR has obtained documents that provide a detailed look at the use of solitary confinement (also known as segregation) in the Northwest Detention Center. These documents, to our knowledge the first of their kind to have been released about any ICE detention facility in the United States, permit a deeper understanding of how segregation is used than has been previously available.

A new set of 94 declassified U.S. government documents have been added to the UW Center for Human Rights’ El Salvador FOIA Collection maintained by UW Libraries. The documents in the new tranche cover a wide range of topics, shedding light on the depth of the U.S.’s role in Salvadoran military operations and revealing a previously unknown cache of intelligence records, of which the UWCHR is now seeking declassification.

During December 2019, UWCHR Director Prof. Angelina Snodgrass Godoy and undergraduate research intern Maya Green [International Studies, Art History] traveled to Panama City to share research into U.S. government archives regarding the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, dubbed “Operation Just Cause” by the U.S. military. Here Maya shares reflections on the visit and the significance

The UWCHR is excited to be part of the Panama Files project, a multidisciplinary, multinational project in partnership with the journalist collective Concolón, to help recover historical memory of the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama and further human rights objectives.

In recent years, human rights work related to wartime crimes against humanity has accelerated and intensified in El Salvador. While it’s still an uphill battle, the possibility of securing justice in key cases before the courts seems closer than ever before—generating hope among victims, but also more palpable resistance among those accused of crimes.  In

Recent days have brought new developments in the University of Washington’s long-standing lawsuit against the US Department of Defense for access to records pertaining to wartime atrocities in El Salvador. In this case, originally filed in December 2017, the University of Washington seeks the declassification of US documents pertaining to the armed conflict, focusing particularly

Report on barriers to access to information regarding immigration enforcement, presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C. on December 5, 2018 during the Commission’s session on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders of Migrants in the United States.

Last year, in response to requests for partnership from local immigrant rights organizations, our research team began examining the human rights implications of contemporary immigration enforcement in Washington state. This work continues to grow, in both depth and urgency: at a time of heightened concern about immigration, it is more important than ever to understand