Safeguarding the Integrity of the Human Rights Reports Act of 2025

Safeguarding the Integrity of the Human Rights Reports Act of 2025 (S. 2611) would strengthen and broaden the U.S. State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The bill codifies a policy that emphasizes fact-based, nonpoliticized reporting and expands the range of human rights issues that must be covered. It adds new categories and specifics to the reporting requirements, including coercive medical and psychological practices, reproductive health rights, and a wider set of freedoms (notably freedom of expression and internet freedom). It also broadens coverage to include topics such as refoulement (returning people to places where they face torture or persecution), privacy, freedom of movement, statelessness, internally displaced persons, civic space, corruption, and the treatment of vulnerable groups. Overall, the bill aims to produce a more comprehensive, credible, and policy-relevant set of country-by-country human rights reports. The practical effect would be a more detailed and expansive Human Rights Report process. By requiring documentation of additional rights concerns and punitive or protective government actions, the United States could use these reports more robustly to guide foreign policy choices, aid decisions, and accountability measures, while also reinforcing protections against political manipulation of the reports.