The Biden administration is working behind the scenes to secure the release of Americans held in Iran, NBC News reported last month. The White House also insists it is “working every day” to free Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in Russia on trumped-up charges in March.
Let’s hope that American citizens who have become prisoners of authoritarian regimes acting outside the norms of international diplomacy will eventually be released to the United States, where they will again enjoy the sweet taste of freedom. And it’s well past time that Congress took steps to ensure that those who are wrongly imprisoned abroad aren’t subjected to a host of additional wrongs when they return to American soil.
There are few things that Republicans and Democrats can agree on these days, but the Stop Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act should be one of them. The bipartisan legislation, introduced in May by Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, and Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, would postpone tax deadlines for Americans who have been unlawfully held in a foreign nation.
