Hostage familes call on Biden to ‘bring our fellow Americans home’
Relatives of more than two dozen American hostages and wrongful detainees held overseas told U.S. President Joe Biden in a letter on Monday that they questioned his administration’s commitment to bringing their loved ones home.
In the letter, obtained by The Associated Press, the family members complained that the administration seemed to be getting “bogged down in burdensome processes or policy debates that keep our loved ones from coming home and keep us uninformed of what you can and cannot do to help us.”
“We need to be shown that the promises of your administration to prioritize the return of our family members are not empty. Now is the time for action. Now we need you to bring our fellow Americans home,” the letter states.
The letter reflects growing concerns within the hostage community that the Biden administration’s foreign policy agenda does not prioritize the release of hostages, and that legal and political actions have complicated rather than advanced efforts to get captives released. In some cases, the letter to Biden asserts, the families feel as if they’re in a “worse” situation now than eight months ago.
The U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan without bringing home Mark Frerichs, an American contractor abducted there in early 2020, and six American oil executives who’d been under house arrest in Venezuela were ordered back to jail this month following the extradition to the U.S. on corruption charges of a business person who prosecutors say was a major conduit for corruption by President Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle.
The families note in the letter that they were optimistic following a February call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Since then, though, they say they have been unable to meet with Biden or with his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, “which leads us to believe that your administration is not prioritizing negotiations and other methods to secure their release.
“When we do meet with other officials we feel we are being kept in the dark about what the U.S. government intends to do to free our loved ones,” the letter says.
The letter was signed by family members of 26 American hostages and detainees held in countries across the world.