Executive Summary

This report, conducted by the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation (JWFLF), is a continuation of JWFLF’s assessments of the efficacy of the 2015 U.S. Hostage Policy Review and the implementation of Presidential Policy Directive 30 and Executive Order 13698. This study seeks to convey the perspectives of U.S. hostages, unlawfully or wrongfully held detainees, their family members, representatives, advocates, former senior military officials, and current and former U.S. officials. It, however, does not represent the perspectives of all former hostages, detainees, and their families, but only presents the perspectives of those who participated in this study.

This report is based on confidential interviews with 42 participants, of whom 28 were former hostages or unlawful or wrongful detainees, family members, advocates, and representatives of current and former hostages and detainees and 14 were former or current U.S. government officials or former senior military officials. It provides insights into how the U.S. government’s 2015 reforms of its hostage recovery enterprise continue to impact the families of Americans held hostage. Additionally, this report examines the support that U.S. nationals detained unlawfully or wrongfully abroad, and their families receive from the U.S. government. All interviews were conducted between March 2020 and April 2021. This study is intended to spark and inform discussions that will continue to improve the U.S. government’s provision of support to hostages, unlawful wrongful detainees, and their families.

1) The changes to the hostage recovery enterprise enacted by Presidential Policy Directive 30 (PPD-30) and Executive Order 13698 remain durable and effective. The Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act codified these changes into law in December 2020. Together, this policy and legal framework created a foundation to coordinate and support U.S. nationals held hostage or unlawfully or wrongfully detained abroad. At the same time, there are indications that this framework will require continued adjustments in order to provide leaders within the hostage recovery enterprise with the authority they need to prioritize the release and recovery of U.S. hostages and unlawful or wrongful detainees held abroad.

• Executive Order 13698 and PPD-30’s establishment of the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell (HRFC) and the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (SPEHA) took the coordination of hostage-taking responses out of the National Security Council and created organizations dedicated to focusing on hostage and unlawful or wrongful detainee recovery. These organizations filled a void present in hostage policy prior to PPD-30 and play a critical role in supporting families. In addition, creating these organizations whose sole purpose is hostage and unlawful or wrongful detainee recovery have created a level of continuity for these issues missing in previous U.S. hostage policy. However, while hostage policy is important in establishing a foundation to coordinate hostage recovery strategies and it enables the U.S. government to engage with families, families stress the importance of not overly bureaucratizing the system since all cases are unique and require flexibility and creative solutions to resolve them. The U.S. government should strive for continuity within the organizations in the hostage recovery enterprise both to better support families and to maintain expertise on how to respond to hostage-taking and wrongful or unlawful detentions but should remain flexible in how it achieves that goal.
• While PPD-30 and the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act have established mechanisms to increase the priority of hostage and wrongful detainee issues in the U.S. government, there are indications that these are, for the most part, only effective when the president and interagency¹ leadership prioritize hostage and wrongful detainee recovery. Increasing the authority and stature of the HRFC, for instance, may be necessary for hostage recovery to be a priority in the face of competing demands for national security attention. The U.S. government should continue to assess whether the changes made under PPD-30 and codified with the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act have established organizations with the proper authority to make hostage and detainee recovery an enduring priority.

2) Overall, former U.S. hostages, unacknowledged detainees, and their families continue to benefit from the U.S. government’s 2015 reforms. At the same time, however, families and U.S. government officials indicated that there remain some gaps in the support provided to these hostage families and in the U.S. government’s ability or willingness to prioritize the recovery of U.S. hostages.

• Hostage families shared concerns about the U.S. government’s ability to continue to declassify and share information regarding their loved ones’ cases. In addition, the pace of declassification efforts was raised as a concern, where some participants reported that U.S. government declassification efforts lagged behind the pace of hostage-taking responses, rendering the information families received less effective when it was disclosed. The U.S. government should examine whether the intelligence community issue manager for Hostage Affairs has the standing and authority to make declassification of information a priority in the interagency.
• While hostage families generally reported satisfaction with the priority that the U.S. government placed on the recovery of their loved ones, hostage advocates, third parties, and U.S. officials indicated that the leadership of the hostage recovery enterprise struggled to make hostage issues a priority within the interagency. As the interagency focus transitions from counterterrorism to great power competition, it will become more difficult for the hostage recovery enterprise to elevate hostage issues and align assets against requirements to generate the intelligence needed to recover U.S. hostages. The Hostage Response Group at the National Security Council will play a key role in supporting the prioritization of hostage recovery during this transition. In addition to the president and the secretary of state, prioritizing the recovery of U.S. hostages must be a focus for the special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, as well as the national security advisor.
• The HRFC, currently housed within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) headquarters, was originally conceived as operating independently. In addition, the HRFC was designed to function as the dedicated interagency organization outside of other U.S. departments and agencies to serve as the primary operational coordinator for hostage-takings. Since its inception, the director of the HRFC has served as a section chief, a lower-level position within the FBI. This places the director approximately five steps below the director of the FBI and other principals. In contrast, the SPEHA office was designed to exist only one step below the principal level and the SPEHA reports directly to the secretary of state. While the office of the SPEHA and the HRFC coordinate and work closely together and the SPEHA’s standing in the State Department is necessary for his or her diplomatic engagements overseas on behalf of hostages and detainees, this difference in standing within the government clouds clear delineation of responsibility for these cases. Placement of the HRFC within the FBI headquarters has blurred the independence of the organization, and thereby, the director’s position and authority to operate as the primary coordinator for hostage-takings. The U.S. government should elevate the position of the director of the HRFC and evaluate whether the placement of the HRFC is positioned appropriately in order to fully engage and act as the U.S. government’s primary interagency body to direct and coordinate activities at the operational level for all hostage-takings.
• Former hostages and family members of former and current hostages seek further support from the HRFC and the office of the SPEHA in providing proof of life of their loved ones, identifying the location and retrieving their loved ones’ remains, and pursuing cases where captors have not been brought to justice. In some cases, prioritizing hostage issues requires supporting efforts to secure justice and accountability, which can continue long after the outcome of hostage-taking.
• Hostage advocates remain concerned about the fates of hostages who remain in Afghanistan, as al-Qaeda promises “war on all fronts” against America.² Advocates reported fearing that once U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, it will become more difficult to generate the intelligence needed to find Americans and conduct rescue operations for current hostages held in the area. They also fear that the further reduction of U.S. physical presence in the country is an erosion of the leverage needed to make progress on resolving these cases. It is perceived by some advocates that securing the release of these hostages was not made a precondition for any settlement during the peace talks in Doha, Qatar with the Taliban. Prioritizing hostage recovery requires that securing the freedom of U.S. nationals be a factor in negotiations with groups holding Americans hostage. It is possible this can be done without the provision of concessions through making their release a precondition to initiating talks or securing a negotiated settlement. The continued holding of U.S. hostages undermines the credibility of any negotiation or deal on other topics with the hostage holders.

3) Since 2020, families of unlawfully or wrongfully detained U.S. nationals have increasingly benefitted from the U.S. government’s 2015 policy reforms. Families report having more direct access to the SPEHA and cite improved information sharing and coordination regarding their loved ones’ cases. Despite not receiving detailed information on recovery options, the overall perception of families is that the SPEHA’s prioritization of wrongful detention cases has improved. The passage of the Levinson Act into law is viewed as a substantial move in the right direction. While there have been recent advances, former unlawful or wrongful detainees, family members of individuals with current cases, as well as potential incoming unlawful or wrongful detention cases, require additional support.

• Unlawful or wrongful detainee participants shared that it took eight months to two and a half years to gain access to the SPEHA’s office. Without access to the SPEHA’s office, these cases often languish in Consular Affairs alongside thousands of lawful detentions that occur overseas each year, getting the standard treatment of wellness visits, but not diplomatic advocacy for their favorable resolution. For these lawful detentions, adjudication through the foreign government’s judicial system is highly likely, but unlawful or wrongful detentions are far less likely to receive any judicial process, let alone due process. This is because these unlawful or wrongful detentions typically occur in countries where the foreign governments show hostility towards the United States and the U.S. nationals are being held to affect changes in U.S. policy, force prisoner exchanges, and/or extract other forms of political concessions from the United States. The complex nature of the relationships between the United States and these countries requires both high-level diplomatic engagement and the prioritization of unlawful or wrongful detainee recovery in the relationship with these countries. In addition, while they are being held, unlawful or wrongful detainees undergo continuous interrogations, experience inhumane treatment such as living in unsanitary conditions, solitary confinement, and some undergo physical and psychological torture. Therefore, unlawful or wrongful detention cases must receive high-level U.S. government and SPEHA diplomatic engagement as well as prioritization within the interagency, something that is not in the remit or practice of Consular Affairs. Delaying access to the SPEHA’s office slows the resolution of these cases and increases the trauma suffered by the detainees and their families. The U.S. government should reconsider how cases are assessed and the process of reassignment to the SPEHA’s office in order to reduce unnecessary trauma to the families and reduce the time each case spends being vetted by Consular Affairs.
• As of this report’s writing, there is not a systematic process for family members to alert the office of the SPEHA of a potential unlawful or wrongful detention case. This report finds that these types of cases can reside within the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department for up to two years before getting the attention of the SPEHA's office through State Department channels. As a result, the most effective method currently to gain a “point of entry” into the SPEHA’s office is either through a consular officer, a nongovernmental organization, or from within the SPEHA’s office itself. Unlawful or wrongful detentions require high-level U.S. diplomatic engagement with foreign governments holding U.S. nationals who try to leverage detention cases for political purposes. Therefore, their cases must not remain in Consular Affairs, which does not engage in diplomacy as an advocate for the wrongfully detained. In addition, the State Department should create a point of entry for family members to notify the SPEHA office whose loved ones have been unlawfully or wrongfully detained overseas.
• In official U.S. government definitions of hostage-taking, the term is defined broadly, focusing on the coercive nature of the act. While this definition of hostage-taking could be used to describe both individuals held by non-state and state actors, the U.S. government functionally excludes those Americans held by foreign governments from the term “hostage.” Despite the U.S. government’s delineation between hostage and unlawful or wrongful detainee cases, some wrongful detentions are essentially hostage-takings conducted by state actors. The victims of these “state hostage-takings” are held primarily for their coercive potential against the United States and often receive the same torture and abuse typically associated with terrorist hostage-takings. Due to U.S. government classifications, however, they receive different levels of support upon their return home. The U.S. government should create a mechanism to provide better support for victims of state hostage-takings, and broaden its functional definition of the term hostage to include these types of cases.
• Unlawful or wrongful detainee advocates and other participants raised serious concerns about reviving nuclear negotiations with Iran while U.S. nationals are currently being held in Iran. In addition, advocates noted the opportunity to release those individuals held in Iran would decrease if the U.S. rolls back sanctions and pressure as incentives to resume talks on Iran’s nuclear program. These advocates also expressed their concerns that Iran was detaining U.S. nationals specifically to achieve leverage during these negotiations and that U.S. and allied detainees needed to be released prior to any official negotiations. Advocates and unlawful or wrongful detainee participants are unified in their demand for the release of U.S. nationals before the United States engages in official negotiations with Iran.

4) Returning hostages and unlawful or wrongful detainees require more mental health, physical, and financial support upon returning home from captivity.

• Mental health, physical, and financial support are significant areas where hostages and unlawful or wrongful detainees require significant assistance. Most often, hostages and detainees come home with their credit scores ruined and face enormous fines for not paying their taxes or credit card bills during the time they were held abroad against their will. Some hostages and unlawful or wrongful detainees struggle to support themselves or even find a place to live upon their return home. In addition, they are often left on their own while suffering from trauma caused by the physical and psychological torture they experienced while in captivity. In the past, there have been cases where some of these individuals committed or attempted suicide in response to their trauma. The U.S. government should explore both how it can help address these critical but unmet needs of returned hostages, unlawful or wrongful detainees, and their families, and whether the government can provide greater support and resources to nongovernmental organizations that might be better placed to address these challenges.
• Many returning unlawful or wrongful detainees specifically require financial reintegration support from the SPEHA office upon returning home from captivity. They often face late fees, interest that was assessed, penalties from the IRS, and destroyed credit while being detained abroad. Mechanisms supporting hostages in remediating these issues are often unavailable to unlawful or wrongful detainees. Former unlawful or wrongful detainees request a dedicated person or desk within the office of the SPEHA that is dedicated to personal finance matters for while they are being held against their will and for when they return home.