Schiff, Curtis Bill Targets Foreign Repression on US Soil
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- Sens. Adam Schiff (D) and John Curtis (R) introduced the bipartisan "Stop Transnational Repression Act" on Tuesday, aimed at foreign government agents who harass, coerce, or threaten people on US soil — with China and Iran singled out by sponsors.
- The bill would create the first federal definition of transnational repression and add up to 10 additional years to prison sentences for convicted individuals, per the bill text cited by Reuters.
- China's ethnic unity law, which took effect July 1 and asserts Beijing's right to target certain critics beyond its borders, was a direct factor in the bill's introduction, Senate staffers told Reuters.
- Freedom House documents 319 transnational repression cases originating from China since 2014 — the most of any country globally — according to the human rights nonprofit cited in the article.
- A New York man was found guilty in May of acting as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government after prosecutors alleged he operated a "secret police station" for Beijing in Manhattan.
- Two men were sentenced earlier this year to 10 and 15 years in prison for a Justice Department-described plot directed by Iran's government to stalk and kill an Iranian-American human rights activist.
Why it matters: Congress is moving to formalize a crime category that has so far been prosecuted case-by-case — the Manhattan "secret police station" conviction and the Iran-directed assassination plot show the patchwork a federal definition would consolidate. If enacted, the bill would give prosecutors a statutory framework and up to a decade of added sentencing for agents targeting Chinese dissidents, Uyghur, Tibetan, and Taiwanese supporters on US soil, addressing complaints that have gone largely unaddressed under existing law.
