A UNITED NATIONS-backed panel of independent experts focusing on racial discrimination has blamed racist hate speech by President Donald Trump and other US political leaders, along with a crackdown on immigration, for causing “grave human rights violations.”

The Geneva-based Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published its decision on Wednesday, urging US authorities to suspend immigration enforcement operations at and near schools, hospitals and faith-based institutions.

Made under the committee’s early warning protocol, the decision is not legally binding but seeks to hold the country to its own international commitments.

The committee said it also was “deeply disturbed” by the use of derogatory and dehumanising language in reference to migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. 

Committee members attributed a reported rise in racial discrimination to “racist hate speech” targeting those groups, but they did not point to any specific data. 

Besides speech, there is also concern about the impact of politicians and other public figures weaponising stereotypes to incite hate crimes and discrimination.

“Portraying them as criminals or as a burden, by politicians and influential public figures at the highest level, particularly the president,” the committee said in a news release, “may incite racial discrimination and hate crimes.”

Mr Trump has been in office when the UN condemned systemic racism, hate and discrimination, as were former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama. 

But the panel this time specifically cited the current president’s speech as part of the problem. It did not criticise Mr Biden or Mr Obama for their rhetoric.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection were also singled out for racially profiling people of colour and conducting identity checks that often seemed arbitrary.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales hit back, claiming: “No-one cares what the biased UN’s so-called ‘experts’ think, because Americans are living in a safer, stronger country than ever before.” 

The report alleges that the US is not living up to its obligations as a party to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which the UN adopted in 1965. 

This is not the first time the panel has condemned the country over racism and discrimination. 

It did so in 2014, following the widespread Black Lives Matter protests over the police killing of Michael Brown and other victims, and again in 2020 in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by officers in Minneapolis.

In 2020, another UN human rights body heard similar arguments from a special rapporteur on contemporary racism, discrimination and xenophobia.