On Sunday, March 9, the United States was added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist amid recent threats of civic freedoms by the Trump Administration. The watchlist is regulated by CIVICUS, a global alliance of non-profit organizations that works to “strengthen citizen action and civil society.” The list identifies and categorizes countries based on their current state of civil liberties and is available to the public.
The CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist categorizes a country’s status based on five rankings, each indicating the severity of the country’s restrictions on civil freedoms. The highest ranking—“Open”—signifies a country’s strong presence of civil freedoms, while the last—“Closed”—signifies a highly restrictive environment for civil freedoms. The U.S. was recently placed at “Narrow” after previously being “Open.”
CIVICUS stated that, since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump “has issued at least 125 executive orders, dismantling federal policies with profound implications for human rights and the rule of the law.”
The reversal of rights, policies, and programs in the U.S., according to CIVICUS, is due to the “assault on democratic norms and global cooperation” by the Trump Administration’s executive orders “designed to unravel democratic institutions.”
The reversal of rights, policies, and programs in the U.S. have adverse implications both domestically and internationally. Among the plethora of concerns listed by the watchlist, CIVICUS mentioned the elimination of federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, as well as policies directly targeting undocumented immigrants and transgender people.
In a statement on the official White House website, the Trump administration claimed the Biden administration “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government.”
Despite the U.S’s dropping CIVICUS ranking, President Trump has continued efforts to end DEI which, alongside executive orders such as dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), may continue to drop our country’s ranking.
