User:Abovfold/Sandbox/Wrongful detention

Wrongful detention is a designation assigned by the United States government when a United States citizen or resident is determined to be imprisoned on false charges by a foreign government, often as a political hostage. Such a designation empowers US officials with additional national resources to aid in assessment and recovery, and additional policy options to negotiate, compel, or coerce release of wrongfully detained individuals.

U.S. National Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag.

The declaration of wrongful detention is made by assessment of the U.S. State Department, Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, utilizing criteria outlined in the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage–Taking Accountability Act of 2020. The Levinson Act empowers the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, and the Hostage Response Group to direct policy and authorizes discretionary sanctions against those responsible for or complicit in wrongful detention. It also mandates annual reporting to Congress on wrongful detentions, the creation of resource guidance for families.

US policy options are empowered by Executive Order (EO) 13698 & Presidential Policy Directive 30 (PPD-30), both issued in June 2015. The EO directs executive branch agencies to coordinate their efforts to leverage “all instruments of national power” to safely recover U.S. nationals held hostage overseas.  PPD-30 expands on the long-standing “no concessions” policy (which seeks to deny the benefit of concessions to hostage-takers) by clarifying that this policy does not prevent the government from communicating, directly or indirectly, with hostage-takers. PPD-30 maintains that hostage-taking is a violation of federal law and that the U.S. government will prosecute and punish hostage-takers overseas.

Executive Order 14078

Published in July 2022, Executive Order 14078 also expands legal provisions for use of sanctions and visa restrictions in relation to hostage and wrongful detention cases. In E.O. 14078, President Biden found that terrorist organizations, criminal groups, and other malicious actors who take hostages for financial, political, or other gain—as well as foreign states that engage in the practice of wrongful detention, including for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States—threaten the integrity of the international political system and constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. The President therefore declared a national emergency to deal with this threat.

Generally, an American who is held by a foreign government for the purposes of influencing U.S. policy or extracting political or economic concessions from Washington is considered “wrongfully detained.” In these cases, negotiations between the United States and the other government are key to securing the American’s freedom.

The State Department does not release the precise number of Americans that it has determined are in that category. But in 2022 a senior State Department official told The New York Times that there were 40 to 50 wrongfully detained Americans abroad.

“Hostage” is a blanket term used to describe Americans who have been blocked from leaving a foreign country. Some are held by terrorist organizations or other groups with whom the State Department does not have diplomatic relations. In these cases, the F.B.I. and other intelligence or law enforcement agencies lead negotiations.

According to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, named for a journalist who was killed in Syria by the Islamic State in 2014, more than 50 Americans are wrongfully detained abroad or being held hostage.