MCHR member organization The Advocates for Human Rights' Rights of Workers Toolkit is valuable for anyone looking to be informed on the rights of workers, be involved in promoting the rights of workers, and get others interested in the rights of workers.

The below information is intended to provide an overview of social, economic, legal and other issues related to meatpacking industry workers in the United States. It is intended to serve as a general introduction to the topic for someone with little or no background knowledge, with links provided to more in-depth sources for further investigation

Multiple human rights conventions express the rights of detained immigrants. The current United States immigrant detention system regularly and systematically violates these rights. The conventions listed below outline the rights of detained immigrants in international human rights law. Articles of particular relevance have been noted.

The Midwest Coalition for Human Rights is engaged in a campaign pressuring the United States to sign and ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT). The following describes the ways in which OPCAT could provide protection to detained individuals:

In international human rights law, everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work. This is meant to ensure workers' access to fair wages, a decent living, safe and healthy working conditions, equal opportunity, rest, leisure, and reasonable limitation of working hours. The below list of resources provides a framework for understanding the fundamental rights of workers from an international perspective.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture defines torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or ot

The UN and other regional human rights bodies engage in a variety of activities that seek to protect, monitor, and advance human rights worldwide. One tool for human rights compliance is that of monitoring and reporting on human rights conditions. The below list of resources include communications to and from Human Rights Monitoring Bodies relevant to the Coalition's Immigrant Detention project. To learn more about Human Rights Monitoring Bodies, click here.

Secure Communities is a DHS program designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable under immigration law. Under Secure Communities, participating jails submit arrestees’ fingerprints not only to criminal databases, but to immigration databases as well; allowing ICE access to information on individuals held in jails. Unlike other ICE‐local partnerships, Secure Communities gives ICE a technological, not physical, presence in prisons and jails.

For years, Human Rights Watch has been investigating human rights abuses in the U.S. immigrant detention system. Below you will find a list of recent Human Rights Watch reports on the subject.