By Thomas Giegerich

This open access book takes stock of the current situation of the human right to democracy in multilevel systems of government - at a time of renewed struggles with antidemocratic forces (democratic backsliding). It tries to answer three questions: (1) Is there a human right to democracy in contemporary global and regional international law as well as European Union law and what consequences does that have for the States’ governmental structure (top-down perspective on national democracy)? (2) Does the human right to democracy also extend to decision-making at the international and supranational level (bottom-up perspective on international/supranational democracy)? (3) What is the relation between national democracy and international democracy and the corresponding human entitlements (interdependence perspective)? The first part of an answer to these questions derives from the elements of democracy proclaimed by the United Nations as a universal value. The second part results from an investigation of the national and international democratic ingredients of the right of self-determination of peoples, whose recognition and codification is the mainstay of the human rights revolution since 1945. The third part is added by a survey and comparison of the various democratic rights included in the global and regional human rights treaties that constitute the subjective cornerstones of democracy. The fourth part is devoted to analysing the EU as exemplary but imperfect multilevel democracy. In all these parts, the enforcement of democratic entitlements are also discussed. In the fifth part, conclusions will be drawn. The book is addressed to international and EU law experts as well as political scientists.

Cham: Springer Nature, 2026.

Edited by Roy, Ananya and Zablotsky, Veronika 

The contributors to Beyond Sanctuary examine how the liberal democracies of the West recognize and include racial others through technologies of state power that promise but rarely grant sanctuary and refuge.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025.

Edited by Jeffrey Merrick

Police in Paris arrested thousands of men for sodomy or similar acts in the eighteenth century. In the mid-1780s, they recorded depositions in which prisoners recounted their own sexual histories. These remarkable documents, curated and translated into English by Jeffrey Merrick, allow us to hear the voices of men who desired men and to explore complex questions about sources, patterns, and meanings in the history of sexuality. This volume centers on two cartons of paperwork from commissaire Charles Convers Desormeaux. Dated from 1785, the cartons contain 221 dossiers of men arrested for sodomy or similar acts in Paris. Merrick translates and annotates the police interviews from these dossiers, revealing how the police and those they arrested understood sex between men at the time. Merrick discusses the implications of what the men said (and what they did not say), how they said it, and in what contexts it was said. The best-known works of clergy and jurists, of enemies and advocates of Enlightenment, and of novelists and satirists from the eighteenth century tell us nothing at all about the lived experience of men who desired men. In these police dossiers, Merrick allows them to speak in their own words. This primary text brings together a wealth of important information that will appeal to scholars, students, and general readers interested in the history of sexuality, sodomy, and sexual policing.

University Park, PA: Penn State University, 2024.

Editors: Andreetta, Sophie and Borrelli, Lisa Marie 

To better understand migration governance and the concrete, daily practices of civil servants tasked with enforcing state laws and policies, it is important to focus on documents, which are core artefacts of bureaucratic work. These can include certificates, letters, reports, case files, decisions, internal guidelines and judgements in both digital and paper form. Based on ethnographic studies in various geographical and bureaucratic contexts, this collection shows how civil servants produce statehood, restrict migrants’ movements and engage with migrants’ strategies to make themselves legible. It contributes to the study of the state as documentary practice and highlights the role of paperwork as a powerful practice of migration control.

Oxford, UK: New York: Berghahn Books, 2025.

Edited by Doris Reisinger, Christof Mandry, Sabine Andresen

Survivors' narratives are an invaluable source for the study of violence across academic fields. At the same time, they present several difficulties for academic research. Sources may be marked by the effects of trauma, the lasting impact of perpetrators' political power or blurred lines between reality and fiction. Ethical and legal problems, distances in time between a violent event and the moment of its narration, and the variation in linguistic phrasing chosen by survivors present additional problems. Based on several case studies, the contributors explore typical problems in the study of violence through survivors' narratives, and possible ways of dealing with them.

Bielefeld, Germany, transcript Verlag, 2024. 

By Belkis Wille

Federal law enforcement agents have since mid-September 2025 used excessive force against peaceful protesters, legal observers, volunteer street medics, and journalists during demonstrations outside a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in suburban Chicago, Human Rights Watch said today. Protests at the Broadview, Illinois facility escalated following the start of ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” on September 8 and an increase in immigration raids and seizures throughout the Chicago area. 

Based on accounts by witnesses and videos that Human Rights Watch analyzed, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents—sometimes in the presence of state and local police, and other federal agents—repeatedly used excessive force against small groups of protesters who appeared to pose no threat to the agents or to public security, and against clearly identifiable journalists, legal observers, and volunteer street medics. They detained dozens of protesters, and at least one journalist and one volunteer street medic. The violent response comes on the heels of law enforcement’s use of excessive force against protesters opposing immigration raids in June in Los Angeles.

“This is not crowd control, but a campaign of intimidation,” said Belkis Wille, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch. “Federal agents are using chemical irritants and firing projectiles at peaceful protesters, volunteer street medics, and journalists in broad daylight. The message is clear that dissent will be punished.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 people who were present during the Broadview protests: 7 protesters, 4 journalists, 1 volunteer street medic, 2 immigration rights advocates, and a religious leader. Researchers also analyzed 17 videos recorded during the protests that were posted to social media or provided to researchers. On October 17, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem summarizing these findings, posing questions, and offering the opportunity to comment, but has not received a response.

Witnesses and video confirm that DHS agents used tear gas and fired projectiles directly into groups of protesters, including from the detention facility roof, often without warning, and without protesters appearing to pose any risk to agents. Witnesses and verified footage show there were sometimes as few as 10 protesters and never more than 250. 

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2025.

By Gabriel R. Sanchez and Edward D. Vargas

• A recent Supreme Court decision allows the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to profile Americans based on perceptions that they look like an immigrant.

• The broad scope of this decision raises serious concerns that Latino citizens and long-term residents may face increased targeting, along with adverse effects on their health and well-being.

• As our analysis shows, this development compounds a long history of punitive immigration policies and racial profiling affecting Latino Americans.

The broad parameters established for being susceptible to ICE investigations put a large number of Latino citizens in jeopardy of being targeted, despite not being undocumented. For example, with an estimated 75% of Latinos across the country reporting that they can speak Spanish pretty well or very well, a large number of Latino citizens are likely to be questioned due to their potential to be perceived as speaking with an accent. When we asked a national sample of Latino immigrants about the accents in their speech patterns, 22% of Latino naturalized citizens reported that they had been discriminated against in their daily activities for speaking with an accent. Clearly, the use of language as a profiling tactic will lead to Latino citizens being unduly questioned and detained. 

Similarly, although it is challenging to determine how race or ethnicity might be perceived as a marker for immigration status, our national survey of Latino immigrants strongly suggests that many Latino citizens will be vulnerable to these criteria. In fact, we asked respondents directly what a white border patrol agent whom they might encounter would assume their race to be, based on their skin color, hairstyle, or facial features. Nearly half (48%) of naturalized Latino citizens reported they would be defined as Latino/Hispanic, and 19% said they would be defined as Mexican. Furthermore, 60% of naturalized citizens reported that their skin color is “medium, dark, or very dark” in our self-reported measure of skin color. These Latino citizens would be highly likely to be targeted under the profiling criteria permitted by the Supreme Court’s ruling.  

As we discuss in this post, this decision will have a marked impact on Latino Americans—a community that has long been targeted by punitive immigration policies and, as prior research suggests, has already been harmed by racial profiling tied to immigration enforcement. 

We have studied the implications of profiling based on immigration status for some time, employing survey measures to better understand how external perceptions of being foreign-born impact Latino Americans.  

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2025

By Human Rights Watch

Law enforcement officers responded to protests against immigration raids in and around Los Angeles, California, between June 6 and 14, 2025, with excessive force and deliberate brutality, Human Rights Watch said today. 

Officers fired tear gas, pepper balls, hard foam rounds, and flash-bang grenades directly at protesters, journalists, and other observers, often at close range and often without sufficient warning or provocation. Scores of people suffered injuries, ranging from severe bruising and lacerations to broken bones, concussions, an amputated finger, and severe eye damage.

“Sweeping immigration raids have terrorized communities across Los Angeles and driven thousands of people to the streets in protest,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis, conflict and arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Local, state, and federal law enforcement’s aggressive response to these protests violently oppressed the public’s right to express outrage and the media’s right to report safely.” 

The protests were sparked by a dramatic escalation of immigration raids across Los Angeles and the surrounding area, following the Trump administration’s orders to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to increase daily arrests of undocumented immigrants. Heavily armed federal agents have stormed stores, warehouses, hotels, restaurants, farms, car washes, taco stands, and other workplaces and detained those they suspect of being undocumented with the aim of deporting them.

Human Rights Watch observed protests and visited locations of ICE raids in and around Los Angeles from June 10 to 14, and interviewed 39 people, including protesters, journalists, legal observers, volunteer street medics, immigration rights advocates and organizers, and others affected by the raids. Researchers analyzed lawsuits, documentation by the Los Angeles Press Club, media reports, and photos and videos recorded during the protests and posted on social media or shared directly with researchers. 

Human Rights Watch documented 65 cases in which law enforcement officers from various local, state, and federal agencies injured protesters, journalists, and other observers. The actual number is most likely much higher. In the three weeks following June 6, more than 280 people contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, most reporting that they had been personally injured by law enforcement agents while engaged in protest activity.

New York: Human Rights Watch; 2025.

By William Downs

What are the current protest laws in the UK? An individual’s right to freedom of expression and assembly are protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is enshrined in UK law. Together, the Articles safeguard the right to peaceful protest. However, these rights are not absolute, and the state can implement laws that restrict the right to protest to maintain public order or to protect the rights and freedoms of others. In the UK, several pieces of legislation provide a framework for the policing of protests. The Public Order Act 1986 provides the police with powers to place restrictions and conditions on protests. These powers were strengthened by part 3 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. The Public Order Act 2023 established several criminal offences in relation to protest, including causing serious disruption by locking on, being equipped to lock on, causing serious disruption by tunnelling underground, obstructing major transport works and interfering with key national infrastructure. There are several other criminal offences that could apply to a person’s conduct during a protest, despite not being offences that are specific to protests. These include wilful obstruction of a highway, public nuisance, and aggravated trespass. What other rules can apply to protests? There have been several examples of businesses and organisations applying for court orders against protesters to stop them from engaging in protest activity that affects their operations. The Public Order Act 2023 also gives the Home Secretary the power to request injunctions against protesters, though at the time of writing this provision has not been brought into force. Part 2 of the Public Order Act 2023 created Serious Disruption Prevention Orders (SDPOs). SDPOs are civil orders that enable courts to place conditions or restrictions on an adult (such as restrictions on where they can go and when) with the aim of preventing them from engaging in protest-related activity that could cause disruption. Breaching an SDPO is a criminal offence. How have protest laws changed? In recent years, the government has initiated major legislative reforms in response to concerns about peaceful but disruptive protests. The Public Order Act 2023 and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 introduced new measures aimed at giving the police increased powers to respond to protests targeting major roads, transport networks, and other infrastructure. Taken as a whole, these reforms have increased the police’s power to intervene in disruptive protests, introduced a range of new protest-related criminal offences and increased penalties for people involved in organising and carrying out disruptive protests. This legislative agenda has been controversial and attracted strong opposition from campaigners who have questioned the compatibility of reforms with human rights legislation. For example, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said that the combined measures in the 2023 and 2022 acts would likely “have a chilling effect on the right to protest in England and Wales” (PDF). The government said that its legislation aimed to “protect the public and businesses from [the] unacceptable actions” of “a small minority of protestors”. It said that existing human rights legislation provides appropriate safeguards for the right to protest (PDF) and that the police and prosecutors will continue to be responsible for acting “compatibly with an individual’s Convention rights” when making any decisions about arrests and charges. What further changes are expected? If it becomes law, the Crime and Policing Bill 2024-25 will introduce further measures aimed at restricting certain behaviours at protests, including creating new offences of possessing pyrotechnics, climbing war memorials, and concealing identity. It would also allow the police to impose conditions on protests planned to pass sites of religious worship. In October 2025, the government announced it would introduce legislation that would allow the police to place conditions on protests that, due to their regularity, have a “cumulative impact” of disruption. This would replace legislation previously introduced via statutory instrument in June 2023 that was quashed following judicial review. The government said it would also review legislation “to ensure that powers are sufficient and being consistently applied.” 

London: House of Commons Library, 2025. 70p.

By Emily Ryo, Jennifer M. Chacón, and Cecilia Menjívar

This article presents a critical analysis of social scientific research from the past fifteen years on the criminalization of immigration in the United States. Our review reveals three central themes. First, although immigration law is considered federal civil law, immigration enforcement has become substantially intertwined with criminal law enforcement in ways that have broad-ranging and radiating effects on immigrant communities of color. Second, race plays an important bidirectional role in the increasing criminalization of immigration. Specifically, criminalizing immigration results in the racialization of certain immigrant groups as dangerous outsiders, and such racialization has the effect of sustaining and promoting the policies and practices that target or have a disproportionate impact on certain immigrant groups. Third, given the increased externalization of US immigration enforcement programs, the effects of the criminalization of immigration are not limited to the United States. Each of these dynamics operates across multiple sites and in various components of the immigration enforcement system to disproportionately affect immigrants racialized as non-White in the United States. We discuss the important gaps in research and policy implications that follow from our review

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 11(3): 282–343.

By Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, Jessica Bracco, Andres Ham Gonzalez, Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco:

We study how drug-related violence affects emigration from Central America, a region with rapidly rising migration to the United States. Using multiple data sources, we apply an instrumental variables strategy based on proximity to drug-trafficking routes and coca production in Colombia. We find that violence significantly increases intentions, plans, and preparations to emigrate—especially to the U.S.—with stronger effects among young and high-skilled individuals. Mediation analysis suggests this response is driven by declining economic activity and, more importantly, deteriorating labor market conditions caused by escalating violence.

IZA DP No. 18028 Bonn: ZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2025. 74p.

By Iotr Bąkowski with Karina Basenko

To raise awareness of the many forms of trafficking in human beings and to boost efforts to address them, the European Union has set 18 October as EU Anti-trafficking Day. Marking the day is an opportunity to highlight the European Parliament's call to step up action against trafficking for the purpose of labour exploitation, which is now broadly recognised as a significant problem across the EU, affecting both EU and non-EU citizens. Background:  According to the most recent European Commission data, labour exploitation ranks second, after sexual exploitation, as the most common purpose of trafficking in the EU. Experts have long argued that labour exploitation is a pervasive issue, and this is increasingly reflected in statistics. While intended to enhance economic efficiency, deregulation and increased labour market flexibility have created conditions favourable to worker exploitation. Goods and services sell at prices that cannot possibly reflect production costs, and profits are increased by cutting wages and lowering working conditions. In countries with developed labour inspection, risks are passed on through difficult-to-monitor cascade subcontracting. Additionally, irregular migration contributes to the presence of a labour force in the EU that may face higher risks of exploitation due to their vulnerable status. Some sectors are particularly affected, including construction, agriculture, forestry, food processing, hospitality, cleaning services, and domestic work. In most sectors,the majority of identified victims are men, domestic work being a notable exception. Employers searching for seasonal staffing flexibility rely on recruitment agencies capable of providing a workforce at short notice. In the EU, such agencies are largely private and insufficiently regulated. Some operate on the margins of legality, or even participate in trafficking networks. COVID-19 exacerbated this issue, especially for seasonal agricultural workers. Victims are exploited in various ways, including by non-payment or deduction of wages, and charging the victims exorbitant prices for (often-imaginary) services provided by traffickers. While most victims are not physically confined to their workplace, the European Court of Human Rights does not consider restriction of their freedom of movement to be a prerequisite in cases of forced labour or trafficking in human beings. Debt bondage arrangements, retention of identity documents and the absence of a work permit are often reason enough for the victim to remain in the exploitative situation.

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025. 2p.

By Costica Dumbrava

The European Union (EU) has developed a complex architecture of information systems to support its policies on external borders, migration management and internal security. In response to recent migration and security challenges, the EU has sought to expand and upgrade its existing information systems on borders and security, and establish new systems and ensure their interconnection (interoperability). The underlying policy goal has been to 'close information gaps' on third-country nationals arriving or staying in the EU, to combat irregular migration and counter security threats more effectively. While the legislative work of updating and expanding EU-wide information systems for borders and security has been swift, the implementation of changes has been more challenging. Following the launch of the revised Schengen information system in March 2023, the new entry/exit system started operations on 12 October 2025. The European travel information and authorisation system (ETIAS) will follow at the end of 2026. This briefing provides an overview of EU-wide information systems for border management and security. It discusses recent developments and presents, where available, key figures on the operation of these systems.

Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2025.. 12p.

By Melissa Castlemaine, Sophy Kohler

This new policy brief examines how endangered flora are being systematically removed from the wild to meet international consumer demand for rare or unusual plants. This trade, once limited and opportunistic, has become more organized, commercialized and transnational, with buyers now concentrated in Europe, the US and Asia.

 South Africa, known for its rich biodiversity, faces threats from the increasing illicit trade in ornamental plants. Endangered species, like *Clivia mirabilis*, are being illegally harvested to satisfy international demand, with over 15,000 plants removed from the Oorlogskloof Nature Reserve by August 2025.

The illegal trade has expanded beyond succulents to include a variety of ornamental plants, with online platforms facilitating this activity. This poaching not only leads to biodiversity loss but also harms ecosystems and local communities.

Despite efforts like the National Response Strategy and Action Plan to Address the Illegal Trade in South African Succulent Flora (2022) and the National Integrated Strategy to Combat Wildlife Trafficking (2023), enforcement remains difficult. 

Upcoming international proposals aim to strengthen protections for threatened plant species. Coordinated responses are urgently needed to combat the illegal trade and protect South Africa’s unique flora.

Geneva: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 36p

By Barry R. Chiswick and RaeAnn H. Robinson

This paper analyzes the characteristics of the free population who were recorded as “owners” of enslaved people in the antebellum Southern states. We utilize the first nationally representative sample linking enslaved and free people - the 1/100 sample microdata files of the 1850 Census of Population from Schedule 1 on free people, and Schedule 2 on the enslaved population - to identify the slaveholders and their slave holdings. The reduced form regression analyses consider both owning at least one enslaved person, and among slaveholders the number held. The findings indicate that 90 percent of the enslaved population were reportedly held by free males, that among men this was more likely for those who were married, but among women it was lower for the married, that for both genders slaveholding increased with age, being literate, and having been born in the US. Moreover, it varied by free men’s occupation, in part because of the extent of self-employment and in part due to their wealth. While most slaveholders were self employed farmers, many of the slaveholders were professionals, including clergy, doctors, and lawyers who used enslaved people in their household, in their professional practice, or in the farms/plantations that they also owned.

IZA DP No. 18031 Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics2025. 62p.

By Cath Collins

This article considers historic and recent approaches to disappearance in transitional justice settings, identifying search, identification and restitution as a uniquely persistent cluster of needs and rights adhering after periods of past political violence. It examines how international and regional norm development, transitional justice dynamics, and needs on the ground have combined to elicit reinvigorated state action over unresolved disappearances in post-authoritarian and post-internal armed conflict Latin America. Dedicated state search offices are considered among various possible responses, but the continued importance of judicial and ‘resistant’ (victim-driven) search is underlined. The ‘forensic turn’ in human rights practice is examined, and aspects of its subsequent evolution – including the proliferation of non-state forensic teams – identified as a potential source of decoupling between the truth and reparations promise of search and identification, and justice imperatives.

The article examines upload and download between present-day search configurations, originating contexts and overarching norms, focusing on search principles adopted by the United Nations in 2019. It suggests that a transitional justice perspective can help assess whether and when apparently divergent or noncompliant approaches should be deemed acceptable – for example, where the fate of the disappeared may be knowable, but they may not be recoverable, or where the passage of time has rendered perpetrator prosecutions a virtual chimera. Finally, the case of Chile’s recent (2023) search office design is used to consider the interplay between norms and country-level diagnostics in creating workable search plans that complement (but without displacing) other important aspects of the struggle against disappearance.

Journal of Disappearance Studies, 1(1), 115-138. Retrieved Oct 6, 2025,

By Laura Huttunen

This article suggests a conceptual framework to think about migrant disappearances. It argues that juxtaposing them with disappearances in other contexts, such as armed conflicts and totalitarian regimes, makes it possible to understand the specificities of each context. The suggested conceptual framework approaches missing and disappeared people as members of families and local communities, but also as subjects of state power and systems of governance across the globe. Migrant disappearances are framed within the tightening border regimes between the Global North and the Global South, and huge global inequalities. The article maps the specificities of migrant disappearances and the challenges of the reconnecting work of search and forensic identification in the context of irregular or undocumented migration. It argues that migrant disappearances often result from migrants being exposed to dangerous circumstances and being left unprotected by any state. The uncertainties and agonies as well as practical and judicial problems faced by families and communities left behind are foregrounded. Moreover, it argues for attention to be paid to various forms of symbolic ‘reappearances’, such as memorial practices and political activism. It also argues that there is a need for more empirical data and theoretical understanding of the complexities of migrant disappearances and reappearances across the globe, both at a global systemic level and in the multiple localities touched by disappeared community members.

Journal of Disappearance Studies, 1(1), 75-93. Retrieved Oct 6, 2025,

By Nikolas Kyriacou

Enforced disappearance is a severe human rights violation with historical roots and global prevalence, perpetrated by state and non-state actors, leaving victims and families in a state of uncertainty. This article explores its legal dimensions in international human rights law. While definitions vary slightly across instruments, a core definition has emerged from the UN Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Inter-American Convention, the Rome Statute and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Key elements include deprivation of liberty, state involvement or acquiescence, and state refusal to acknowledge the person’s fate, placing them outside of any legal protection.

Enforced disappearance is characterized as a multiple human rights violation. It inherently violates the right to liberty and security, and can involve the right not to be subjected to torture. It also frequently serves as a precursor to violations of the right to life. International human rights mechanisms have addressed these violations through various remedies. While the monetary compensation offered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is noted as inconsistent and opaque, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) has developed a broader system including monetary and diverse non-monetary measures, emphasizing the duty to investigate and the right to truth. The 2007 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED) offers the most comprehensive framework, explicitly recognizing the rights to justice and reparation, which includes compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. Despite these advancements, challenges in implementation and enforcement persist, highlighting the ongoing need for global commitment to end impunity and ensure justice.

Journal of Disappearance Studies, v. 1, 2025.

By Physicians for Human Rights

The United States maintains the world’s largest immigration detention system, detaining an average daily population of nearly 60,000 people in immigration detention.¹ U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains people in a network of facilities across the country where they often endure inhuman conditions, including solitary confinement.² Solitary confinement is the practice of isolating people in small cells without meaningful human contact for 22 hours or more per day.³

Over the past decade, the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention has risen at an alarming rate, with unprecedented numbers of immigrants held in isolation.⁴ Congress recently authorized a significant increase in funding to expand immigration detention, which will likely exacerbate this widespread, prolonged use of solitary confinement as detention capacity increases.⁵

The effects of prolonged solitary confinement can be lethal, as in the case of Charles Leo Daniel, who died after spending more than 13 years of his life in solitary confinement in various detention settings, including almost four years in solitary confinement in ICE detention.⁶ The adverse health effects of solitary confinement are well-established, extensively researched, and thoroughly documented across decades of literature,⁷ including post-traumatic stress disorder, self-harm, elevated suicide risks, lasting brain damage, and hallucinations.⁸ These effects often persist beyond the confinement period, resulting in enduring physical and psychological disabilities, especially among people with preexisting medical and mental health conditions.⁹ Vulnerable populations, including those with medical and mental health conditions, are often subjected to solitary confinement at high rates despite ICE’s own directives mandating its use as a last resort.

New York: Physicians for Human Rights, 2025. 21p.

By The Anti-Defamation League

The attacks on October 7, 2023, and their aftermath have profoundly reshaped Jewish American life. This joint report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Jewish Federations of North America draws on two large, nationally representative surveys of Jewish Americans conducted earlier this year to illustrate the complex dynamics affecting them. The findings highlight both the widespread effects of antisemitism and the remarkable resilience of Jewish communities. 

Key Findings

Over half of Jewish Americans (55%) report experiencing some form of antisemitism in the past year.79% of all respondents are concerned about antisemitism.

Nearly one in five (18%) were either the victim of an assault, experienced threat of physical attack, or experienced verbal harassment due to their Jewish identity in the past year, while over one-third (36%) witnessed actual or threatened antisemitic violence.

Jewish Americans experienced antisemitism in many contexts, with the most common ones including online, public spaces, the workplace, and educational institutions.

Safety concerns are widespread among American Jews; over 50% are somewhat, very or always worried about personal safety, one-third have discussed with others what they would do in a “worst case” scenario, and 14% have developed a plan should they need to flee the country due to rising antisemitism. These rates are significantly higher for those that experienced direct antisemitic harm.

Jewish-Americans who experienced direct antisemitic harm or witnessed antisemitic acts within the past 12 months exhibited higher rates of symptoms used to screen for anxiety and depression.

One in five Jews who wore something distinctively Jewish before October 7 have since taken it off.

American Jews showed great resilience, with 84% of those who were directly harmed in the past year making some positive change because of the antisemitism they experienced.

What Jewish Federations terms “the Surge” - a marked increase in Jewish engagement - continues, though at slightly lower levels than in 2024, with nearly one-third of Jews reporting increased participation in Jewish life.

New York: ADL, 2025