The Trump administration is expected to issue an executive order establishing a designation for state sponsors of wrongful detention in a move that would allow the U.S. to punish countries that illegally detain U.S. nationals or take them hostage.
CBS News reports the effort is aimed at curbing the number of Americans who elect to travel to such countries, and encouraging the leaders of those countries to immediately free Americans currently held there.
The U.S. government does not publicize the number of Americans detained abroad. According to the Foley Foundation, an advocacy group, at least 54 Americans were held hostage or wrongfully detained in 17 countries during 2024.
The State Department currently issues advisories with four levels of risk to advise Americans planning international travel, topped by “Level 4: Do not travel.” There are 21 countries on the “Do Not Travel” list, several of which list wrongful detention as a risk to travelers, including Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Venezuela and North Korea.
The State Department says most U.S. nationals who are arrested overseas are detained due to “legitimate law enforcement and judicial processes.”
In President Trump’s first term, Congress passed the Robert Levinson Act, which says the State Department can find that a U.S. national is being wrongfully detained based on multiple criteria, including the fairness of the country’s judicial system, credible evidence of their innocence or reports that they are being held to extract concessions from the U.S. government.
Levinson, a retired FBI and DEA agent, was kidnapped in Iran in 2007, and the U.S. maintained that he was held wrongfully by the Iranian government. In 2020, U.S. officials said intelligence suggested that he had died.
His daughter, Sarah Levinson, in a statement to CBS News, thanked Mr. Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, advisers Adam Boehler and Sebastian Gorka and FBI Director Kash Patel “for sending such a powerful message to stop hostage taking.”
“We have watched in horror as the practice of taking American citizens hostage as political leverage has not only escalated but run rampant by the acts of many rogue nations,” Sarah Levinson wrote, adding, “Our father, Robert Levinson, was wrongfully detained by the Iranian government and ultimately died in Iranian custody after years in captivity. This must never happen again.”
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BRILLIANT!!!!!
Yes & Hooray