USCIRF logo / USCIRF

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its 2026 annual report on March 4, sparking a firestorm both within the U.S. and abroad. While foreign nations, such as India, criticized the report as “motivated and biased,” domestic criticism centered on policy. These controversies underscore the urgent need to question the State Department bureaucracy's relevance and effectiveness and to examine whether USCIRF should continue in its current form.

The U.S. Congress created the USCIRF through the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA, 1998) to monitor and report on religious freedom abroad. With 9 members, the Commission uses “international standards” to assess violations of religious freedom and provides annual recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and Congress. The Commission recommends certain countries or entities to the State Department for inclusion on the "Special Watch List," "Countries of Particular Concern," or "Entities of Particular Concern."

Countries with particularly severe violations of religious freedom are designated as Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs). In contrast, countries with lesser, though still severe, violations are placed on the Special Watch List (SWL). 

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The Commission defines “particularly severe violations of religious freedom” meaning “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations,” including violations such as: (A) torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; (B) prolonged detention without charges; (C) causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction or clandestine detention of those persons; or (D) other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.”

Over the years, however, the Commission has become grossly ineffective, extremely partisan, and a source of religious tension. 

The Commission is ineffective because its recommendations carry no binding authority over the State Department, which routinely disregards them. This raises questions about the reliability and credibility of these recommendations. The State Department, equipped with its own intelligence resources and as part of the U.S. Intelligence Community, makes its own judgments. For example, except for Algeria and Azerbaijan, the State Department flatly ignored USCIRF’s 2025 Special Watch List recommendations. USCIRF's recommendations frequently diverge from the State Department’s assessments.

Even when the U.S. government follows USCIRF’s CPC recommendations, it faces no obligation to impose punitive sanctions on the offending country. Pakistan, for example, maintained its "Country of Particular Concern" designation, yet received a “national interest waiver,” making it clear that sanctions would contradict U.S. priorities.

US domestic partisan politics have repeatedly compromised USCIRF’s recommendations and designations. Since 2009, the Commission has persistently advised a CPC designation for Nigeria. The Trump administration acted decisively in 2020, labeling Nigeria a CPC, only for the Biden administration to reverse course in 2021. The Trump administration returned Nigeria to CPC status in 2025, demonstrating that the Commission is a tool of political swings.

The Commission also demonstrates partisan conflict and political bias. When it criticized cuts to USAID programs, Republican appointees on the Commission firmly dissented from Democrat-endorsed criticisms. Many Republicans actively denounce USAID, arguing it serves political interference domestically and abroad.

One source of religious tension is the Commission's composition. Critics have argued that the Commission lacks representation from diverse minority religions, which often results in ignoring their perspectives on matters of religious freedom. 

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which provides the framework for USCIRF’s recommendations, protects the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. It guarantees the right to change religion or belief, and to manifest them—alone or in community, in public or private—through teaching, practice, worship, and observance, shielding individuals from coercion or discrimination. 

The UDHR, however, fails to protect the right to retain one’s faith. Non-proselytizing religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Judaism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto, and tribal traditions, face repeated mischaracterization: their efforts to safeguard followers from predatory proselytization are routinely labeled violations of religious freedom. The Commission’s reporting on India, treating anti-conversion laws as negatives, exemplifies this systemic misunderstanding.

These fundamental misunderstandings are inevitable when major world religions like Hinduism– the oldest surviving and the third largest (over a billion followers) religion– are systematically excluded from Commission representation. Of the nine commissioners, not a single one represents a non-Abrahamic tradition or has expertise in comparative religion. Hindu Americans and Indians have consistently and forcefully condemned this glaring deficiency. 

Critics also identify grave methodological failings in the Commission’s work. They assert that USCIRF’s reports frequently lack robust, macro-level evidence and rely on cherry-picked narratives to represent entire nations. As Anang Mittal put it: "The commission has no investigative arm. There is blatant overreliance on advocacy organizations with their own agendas." USCIRF offers neither standardized vetting of report contributors nor systematic fact-checking. Mittal notes, "There is zero transparency about which incidents the Commission spotlights in country reports." Mittal is a communications strategist and a former Hill staffer serving Speaker Mike Johnson and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

For Columbus State University communications professor Ramesh Rao, the Commission, with a $3.5 million budget, is simply another dated bureaucracy whose continued existence cannot be justified. Rao is clear: the USCURF "should have been shut down in 2016 but was needlessly revived by Congress, allowing mediocrities and politically compromised commissioners to entrench themselves in Washington influence networks."

(The author is a recipient of the California New Publishers Association and the San Francisco Press Club’s journalism awards)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of New India Abroad.)

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