© Ng Han Guan/AP
United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston.
I. Introduction
1. I have spent the past
two weeks visiting the United States, at the invitation of the federal government, to look at whether the persistence of extreme poverty in America undermines the enjoyment of human rights by its citizens. In my travels through California, Alabama, Georgia, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, and Washington DC I have spoken with dozens of experts and civil society groups, met with senior state and federal government officials and talked with many people who are homeless or living in deep poverty. I am grateful to the Trump Administration for facilitating my visit and for its continuing cooperation with the UN Human Rights Council's accountability mechanisms that apply to all states.
2. My visit coincides with a
dramatic change of direction in US policies relating to inequality and extreme poverty.
The proposed tax reform package stakes out America's bid to become the most
unequal society in the world, and will greatly increase the already high levels of wealth and income inequality between the richest 1% and the poorest 50% of Americans.
The dramatic cuts in welfare, foreshadowed by the President and Speaker Ryan, and already beginning to be implemented by the administration, will
essentially shred crucial dimensions of a safety net that is already full of holes. It is against this background that my report is presented.
Comment: There isn't a much more contentious issue at the moment than immigration. Despite what left-leaning types would have us believe, the American people seem to support Trump's immigration policies which, as speculated, may have been behind his presidential win in the first place.
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