The Chinese regime holds more Americans as prisoners than any other nation in the world, said Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.).
A bipartisan group of U.S. representatives has introduced legislation aimed at freeing Americans unjustly detained in China.
The bill, unveiled by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), would enable the U.S. government to utilize diplomatic, legal, and economic tools to bring its citizens back home.
The proposed measures also seek to counter the Chinese regime’s tactic of holding family members of American citizens as hostages to silence critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Smith said in a statement on Sept. 19.
The CCP holds more Americans as prisoners than any other nation in the world, according to Smith, co-chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, a panel created by Congress in 2000 to monitor human rights abuses in the communist country.
“Innocent Americans have been wrongfully imprisoned and tortured by an amoral legal system that has no respect for truth, due process, and basic human rights,” he said. “It is well past time that the United States responds forcefully and fearlessly to rescue its citizens who have been held hostage by the CCP.”
The Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt Unjustly Detained in Communist China Act is named after two Americans who have spent more than a decade in Chinese prisons.
Nelson Wells Jr. was arrested in 2014 and later sentenced to 22 years in prison after Chinese officials allegedly discovered drugs in his bag, something his family insists he knew nothing about, according to Smith’s office. After years of detention, the New Orleans native is in poor health, suffering from weight loss and mental and physical health issues, his father said in a statement.
Dawn Michelle Hunt, who is from Chicago, was detained in the same year on similar drug-related charges. Duped into believing she had won a cash prize, Hunt traveled to Hong Kong and mainland China, where she received a designer bag with illicit drugs sewn into the lining, her brother said at a congressional hearing in September 2024. Hunt is serving a life sentence in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong.
Krishnamoorthi, ranking member of the House Select Committee on China, said Hunt has been “used as leverage by the CCP.”
“This legislation is about Dawn, and other Americans who are unjustly detained or blocked from returning home by the People’s Republic of China,” he said in a statement. “We must show her family, and all families like hers, that America will never abandon its own.”
More than 200 U.S. nationals are under detention, exit bans, or other forms of coercive measures in China, according to estimates by the Dui Hua Foundation, a San Francisco-based rights group advocating for political prisoners in China.
By Dorothy Li
