Trump silently halts coop with UN in probes into US human rights violations

The state department quietly ceased to respond to official complaints from UN special rapporteurs, The Guardian reported Friday.

Since May 7, 2018, the rapporteurs have not received a response to their inquiries and at least 13 requests have been unanswered.

Among the issues are separation of children from their families at the US border with Mexico amid Trump’s crackdown on the caravan of immigrants trying to enter the United States.

Felipe González Morales, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said he has tried to set up a formal visit by approaching the administration twice but to no avail.

“In the absence of an official visit, we cannot publish a country report to be presented to the UN human rights council,” he said.

The administration of former President Barack Obama gave “timely, thoughtful and constructive responses,” at least to the five official complaints made by UN expert on adequate housing Leilani Farha (pictured above) since her appointment in 2014.

“This suggests the US has abandoned even the most rudimentary forms of human rights accountability, and a whittling away of access to justice for those in the US whose human rights may have been violated,” Farha said. “It also demonstrates a rather inappropriate arrogance, at a time when human rights in the US are particularly fragile.”