US: New Congress Should Assert Oversight

(Washington, DC) - The newly elected US Congress should prioritize respect and protection for human rights both within the United States and around the world, Human Rights Watch said today. Voters elected a majority of Democrats to control both the House and the Senate in the November 3, 2026 midterm elections.

"This newly elected Congress will convene at a critical moment for human rights domestically and globally," said Michael García Bochenek, interim US program director at Human Rights Watch. "Lawmakers should challenge the Trump administration's many abuses, embrace the oversight authority provided to Congress, and act decisively to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights."

Lawmakers should address the widespread abuses in immigration enforcement by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which have resulted in arbitrary detention, serious injuries, and unlawful killings. The new Congress should reconstitute and strengthen transparency and oversight mechanisms, put in place meaningful protections against excessive force, and pursue accountability for officials and enforcement agents responsible for the many serious human rights violations of the last two years.

The incoming chair of the House of Representatives oversight committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, has said that his focus will include "DHS and ICE abuses," warning responsible officials to "lawyer up."

"The incoming Congress should prioritize rigorous oversight over the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Defense," Bochenek said. "Congress should restore gutted oversight bodies to full force. Without comprehensive oversight and accountability, abusive practices will most likely continue with impunity."

The new Congress should also mandate actions to repair and provide a remedy for harm and abuses committed by the Trump administration in its second term, Human Rights Watch said. These harms should include discrimination in voting, policing, discrimination, education, and housing.

To begin rebuilding the federal civil rights infrastructure necessary to tackle discrimination, which has been dismantled, Congress needs to conduct oversight hearings on the collapse of enforcement capacity at the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. It should provide appropriations for these agencies that are explicitly directed to civil rights enforcement and pass legislation to allow private individuals to file suit under the Civil Rights Act to address disparate impact claims of harm that government actions have caused them.

Congress has failed to implement adequate safeguards or oversight of the Trump administration, including as the administration has committed serious violations of the laws of war in Iran and continued unlawful lethal strikes on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean that have resulted in over 240 extrajudicial killings. Congress also oversaw the gutting of US foreign assistance and approved a bill allowing the government to claw back approximately $9 billion of previously approved aid, including critical support for human rights. The new Congress should look at opportunities to restore foreign assistance funding, particularly for human rights programs, in future appropriations processes.

The new Congress should also demand that the Department of Defense release its report on an unlawful strike on a primary school in Minab in southern Iran that killed over 150 people, most of them children, and analyze whether dismantled civilian harm mitigation structures contributed to other unlawful strikes, Human Rights Watch said.

The Trump administration has also removed tens of thousands of third-country nationals to other countries where they have faced human rights violations and a risk of onward return to countries where they are at risk of persecution. It sent Venezuelan nationals to El Salvador's CECOT prison, where they were tortured systematically and subjected to other abuses, including sexual violence. The new Congress should reassert scrutiny over foreign policy and security cooperation, Human Rights Watch said.

"Incoming members of Congress should strengthen the institution's commitment to protect human rights for every person in the United States," Bochenek said. "Congress should also embrace the guidance these protections offer for a rights-respecting foreign policy."