<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654271509479,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0e59-daea-a7ff-0f5fee2e0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654271509479,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"0000016b-0e59-daea-a7ff-0f5fee2e0002","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_53335662", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1018051"} }); rn","_id":"00000181-2a43-df81-a381-6a77fae50000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedThe State Department believes a smaller number of Americans are wrongfully detained abroad than some nonprofit organizations dedicated to raising awareness about their cases.
The office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which handles this subject for the U.S. government, considers roughly 35-40 Americans “wrongfully detained,” a State Department official told the Washington Examiner on Thursday, whereas both the Foley Foundation and the Bring Our Families Home Campaign say the number is hovering around 60. SPEHA does not publicly release the exact figure.
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“We have a divergence, but that’s OK,” the official said. “We have to go through a process. It’s not crazy hard. It’s, I would say, it’s robust, but it’s diligent to make sure we’re looking at all the facts, and some of the facts we lookout are classified, and that goes into the determination process that eventually a case goes before Deputy Secretary Wendy Sherman.”
“Our numbers are a little different because we’re probably hitting it a little more rigorously. Having said that, I think when, like the Foley Foundation, talks about a case, we listen with both ears because they have good instincts on this, and at times, they’ll be the first ones to identify a case,” the official said.
The Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, which Congress passed in 2020, codified how the U.S. government handles international kidnappings and arrests. It lays out 11 criteria that the secretary of state should consider when determining whether an American has been unlawfully or wrongfully detained, though the responsibility now falls to the deputy secretary.
The determining factors break down to whether there is information that the charges against an American could be trumped up, whether the person is being targeted for being an American, if they have their due process impeded or are held in “inhumane conditions,” and whether the government behind the detainment is attempting to secure concessions from the United States.
In the event a case comes before the department and the decision-makers decide it doesn’t reach the threshold for the “wrongful detention” designation, they keep the file open should more evidence become available, the official said.
SPEHA was created in 2015 by the Obama administration, while its current leader, Roger Carstens, has been in the position since March 2020 and was appointed by then-President Donald Trump.
Carstens said in a late February interview with 60 Minutes that the number was higher than what the official told the Washington Examiner when he explained that “when I go to bed every night, I feel the weight of not having brought home between 40 and 50 Americans, so I don’t go to bed usually feeling good.”
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Since then, however, the U.S. has brought two Americans, Gustavo Cardenas and Jorge Fernandez, home from Venezuela and Trevor Reed from Russia, and the official also said it had some prospective negotiations “ongoing.”
The Foley Foundation and the BOFH Campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The two groups, which include families of Americans who are detained abroad, partnered together for a rally in front of the White House earlier this spring to raise additional awareness and to demand a meeting with President Joe Biden.
