Scholars with the Williams Institute recently submitted an updated report on the U.S. government’s compliance with “its human rights obligations to LGBT people for the period from April 2025 to April 2026,” according to a press release from the institute.
The report focuses on “areas of heightened concern,” according to the press release, including discrimination, ill treatment and denials of protection for LGBT refugees, immigrants and people seeking asylum.
“It also details recent government actions to exclude transgender people from public life, travel and evidence-based health care, as well as the removal of LGBT people from federal data,” the press release notes.
The report points to “a series of overlapping executive orders, presidential proclamations, regulatory changes and agency directives on immigration” as having “created confusion” regarding who is barred from entry, when and whether asylum procedures are available and whether immigrant visas can be issued or adjudicated.
It also notes that no official data is being kept regarding the sexual orientation or gender identity of individuals being deported by the Trump administration, leaving the institute to “conduct ongoing monitoring of media and NGO accounts” in an effort to kind and keep track of such information, “with the caveat that this process can reveal only a fraction of existing cases.”
Other immigration issues enumerated in the report include state-directed restrictions on legal recognition of gender identity and denial of healthcare for trans people, especially trans youth and state-directed removal of sexual orientation and gender identity data from federal surveys.
The report calls on the U.S. to pass legislation ensuring legal recognition of gender identity at the federal level and banning discrimination based on sex, sex characteristics, sexual orientation and gender identity. It also calls for “nationwide efforts to address the under-reporting of and impunity for hate crimes” based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
The report calls for U.S. officials to enact measures to protect LGBTQ+ people seeking asylum or refuge and those who want to immigrate to the country, as well as calling for restarting and expanding collection of data on sexual orientation and gender identity in government research that collects demographic information, and for addressing “the harms to vulnerable communities,” including LGBTQ+ people and people with HIV/AIDS in other countries that was caused by the U.S. withdrawing foreign assistance.
Read the full report on the Williams Institute website.
— Tammye Nash