Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

There are few things America's left and right will agree upon. One area of agreement is that America aspires to set the gold standard when it comes to human rights. And as we know, elected officials from across the political spectrum will be quick to criticize certain countries for their perceived human rights deficiencies. 

America's imperfect effort at being the leader in human rights has taken a beating this summer. And there is no reason to believe the situation will improve. Two items will be briefly addressed below, and then considerable time will be spent on a third.

First, mass shootings continue on a daily basis, and there is no domestic political will to do what it will take to fix the problem. In the first five days of July alone, 24 people from all parts of the US died from gun violence, an average of roughly five per day. Last year, more than 20,000 Americans died via homicides. There is no other way to put this: Too many Americans have come to accept that they must live with the fear of being close to or part of such an event.

You cannot square America's commitment to human rights leadership with a population knowing at any moment that a mass shooting might happen in their community, or to them personally.

Second, a scathing report was recently released showing that maternal mortality rates are on a steep rise throughout the US. Quoting the report, "In 2021, 1,205 women died of maternal causes in the United States compared with 861 in 2020 and 754 in 2019. The maternal mortality rate for 2021 was 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared with a rate of 23.8 in 2020 and 20.1 in 2019." And, yes, as you might guess, Black women were especially at risk, with 70 deaths reported for every 100,000 live births.

Here again, you cannot square America's commitment to human rights leadership when the country's most vulnerable women are at risk of dying from giving birth and most of the country simply shrugs with indifference. Come to think of it, how can American conservatives, always quick to talk about their commitment to the right to life, not look at that information and demand that money and resources be used to address maternal death in the US? Might the reason be that White women are less likely to die during childbirth?  

And then there was this headline in the July 7 edition of the Washington Post: "More than 100 migrants died from heat near US-Mexico border this year." Parts of the US have dealt with intense heat this summer. The New York Times noted, as of July 8, "about 49.5 million people - 15 percent of the population of the contiguous United States - live in the areas expected to have dangerous levels of heat." A quick glance of the map tells you that the southeast and the southwest, where the US border with Mexico is located, are baking under a hot sun.

Yes, people with air conditioners and other mechanisms to cool off will tolerate the heat. But America's poorest people often lack such luxuries. The "migrants" at the border, who continue to seek entry into the United States so that they may have a better life, definitely do. I will set aside the argument about "refugee" versus "migrant" and simply acknowledge that "migrant" makes a person seem less needy and less deserving of a human touch. 

The heat is dangerous, but the response to it from United States Customs and Border Protection was heartless. Through a tweet, the agency stated: "Rising temperatures along the southwest border during the summer make the dangerous trek to cross into the U.S. unlawfully even more treacherous. Do not endanger your lives by embarking on the hazardous journey to the United States."

Read those words carefully, and then remember the words at the base of the Statue of Liberty, a symbolic beacon of America's commitment to human rights: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Let us ignore for a moment that the offensive tweet is not likely to reach the intended audience. That is a minor issue when compared to the fact that someone was callous; the author of that tweet wantonly threw into the garbage the country's belief in giving succor to people in distress.

Dig deeper into the aforementioned Washington Post story and you find that America's disregard for the wellbeing of these "migrants" is not new: "There were about 219 migrant deaths due to heat at the United States' southern border in the 2021 fiscal year, which the CBP measures from October 2020 to September 2021, up from about 100 deaths in each of the previous three years, CBP data shows. Last year's figures were not included."

Human rights cross borders, the United States wants you and I to believe. Yet, those rights appear not to apply when someone seeks to cross the border into the US. That is not a message that aligns with the country's often-stated "exceptionalism."

The author is an associate professor at the Department of Communication and Organizational Leadership at Pittsburgh-based Robert Morris University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn