Amnesty International USA, Inc. HQ

Our vision is of a world in which every person - regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity - enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and other internationally recognized human rights standards.

Amnesty International’s uniquely effective approach for protecting human rights uses a three-pronged approach:

RESEARCH
Our crisis response teams and researchers travel to affected areas around the world to uncover individual human rights abuses and document patterns of abuse.

MOBILIZATION
Our campaign teams use this research to educate the public about human rights abuses – and they give members and grassroots activists the information and tools they need to demand that human rights be protected.

ADVOCACY
Our staff and volunteer leaders engage in direct advocacy with policymakers at the state and federal levels in the U.S., while we rally grassroots activists from all 50 states to demand that policymakers protect human rights in the U.S. and around the world.

Amnesty International USA has more than a million members and activists in all 50 states, who are part of a larger global movement of 10 million people in 150 countries. We are a democratically governed, grassroots membership organization, which means that our members vote on key policy issues and elect our Board of Directors.

Tens of thousands of people have been freed after we campaigned against their unjust imprisonment for exercising their human rights since our inception. For instance, in 2020, in the face of a global pandemic that exposed systemic inequalities, Amnesty International USA’s staff, members, and activists worked tirelessly for human rights in the U.S. and around the world. In 2020, our work contributed to positive developments on 88 individual cases, the release of 61 prisoners of conscience, and had a crucial impact on 562 human rights defenders cases. Our advocacy also contributed to the passage of S. Res 142 in the full Senate, which calls for the release of Senator Leila de Lima in the Philippines.

Freeing people from immigration detention continued to be one of our top priority areas of work due to the urgent risk of illness and death posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Tens of thousands of immigrants and asylum-seekers locked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were left behind to face these turbulent times alone, in facilities where conditions are well-documented to have substandard medical care, inadequate basic hygiene, and overcrowding. Through the power of collective action, 3,722 calls, 10,596 letters, and 36,152 petitions were made to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and contributed to the release of several asylum-seekers, including families with children. Our partners on the ground noted that Amnesty’s Congressional advocacy and coalition-building was integral in achieving this progress.

With regard to domestic human rights crises, we engaged in campaign work to stop the killing of Black people
by police and to stop violence against Black Lives Matter protesters in the wake of the extrajudicial execution
and torture of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. Our Research team produced numerous reports
throughout the campaign, including, “The World is Watching: Mass Violations by U.S. Police of Black Lives
Matter Protesters’ Rights,” “Losing the Peace: U.S. Police Failures to Protect Protesters from Violence” and
the ground-breaking virtual monitoring map of incidents of police violence across the country.

In 2021, Amnesty called upon the Biden administration to quickly adopt a bold, transformational human rights agenda. We were able to achieve a number of early and important victories that have helped dismantle some of the previous administration’s most anti-human rights policies including repeal of the global gag rule; halting support for the Saudi-led coalition that has inflicted untold suffering in Yemen; and securing a pledge from the President to increase the refugee admissions cap and begin to restore U.S. leadership in welcoming people fleeing violence and persecution.

AIUSA will continue to fight for the rights of asylum seekers, prisoners of conscience and for human rights defenders worldwide.