As US brings home large numbers of jailed Americans, some families are still waiting for their turn

WASHINGTON — Whatever the case, the past eighteen months have been remarkable in terms of getting wrongfully incarcerated Americans home. There were major exchanges with adversaries like Iran and Russia, including one that secured the freedom of WNBA star Brittney Griner, and a major prisoner exchange last month with Venezuela.

But Harrison Li had little to celebrate. Despite the succession of high-profile releases, jubilant family reunions and triumphant photos on government planes, his father, Kai, remains imprisoned in China on spy charges that his family says are bogus and politically motivated.

Li, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, says that while he feels “so much joy and happiness” for the other families – many of whom he has befriended over the years – “I’d be lying if I didn’t say , then the The next thought is: when is it our turn?’

He added: “When you see so many people coming home but still not seeing your loved one, there is definitely an element of frustration.”

Li is not alone. Despite all the releases of wrongfully detained Americans, several dozen are still imprisoned or held hostage, often by a hostile government. In some cases, there has been little sign of progress, and families have sometimes watched the foreign countries that held their loved ones release other prisoners — but not yet their family members.

Those sensitivities are not lost on Roger Carstens, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and the Biden administration’s public face on matters related to hostages and unlawful detainees — the label applied to Americans imprisoned abroad on grounds of legally misleading accusations or for improper motives.

He handles the negotiations with foreign governments, and once the deal is done, he flies out to bring back the released prisoner, routinely telling them that on behalf of the U.S. government, “I’m here to take you home.”

“There is always a very short-lived celebration, because we still have a lot of work to do to bring other people home,” Carstens said in an interview.

The Biden administration has been particularly aggressive in cutting deals, signing prisoner swaps and other concessions that would once have been unthinkable, and achieving releases at what advocates say are historically high levels. U.S. officials have called bringing home wrongfully detained Americans a core administration priority, even if it conflicts with other foreign policy or law enforcement interests, though the ability to reach a deal in all cases depends on negotiators reaching mutually acceptable terms – no small feat. for countries that otherwise have little agreement.

Last month, Venezuela released 10 Americans and returned to the US to prosecute an indicted naval contractor known as “Fat Leonard” in exchange for the US release of an ally of President Nicolas Maduro accused of a conspiracy for money laundering. In September, five Americans imprisoned in Iran for years were released in a deal that released nearly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets. Months earlier, Rwanda freed Paul Rusesabagina, who inspired the film “Hotel Rwanda,” after a diplomatic intervention on his behalf by the US.

And in 2022, the US traded a captured Taliban drug lord for an American contractor in Afghanistan, and a notorious Russian arms dealer for Griner.

As hostage diplomacy has generated headlines and become a major focus — heightened in part by the October arrest of dozens of hostages in Israel by Hamas — families of detainees have displaced the attention of the U.S. government, including President Joe Biden. himself.

The president has met with a number of families — holding in-person and virtual conversations with families of American hostages held in Gaza — although some, like Li, are still seeking their first meeting.

Kai Li, a Chinese immigrant who started his own export business in the US, was arrested in September 2016 after flying to Shanghai. He was placed under surveillance, interrogated without a lawyer and charged with providing state secrets to the FBI. The US government has classified him as unlawfully detained and a United Nations working group has called his 10-year prison sentence arbitrary.

Complicating matters are the diplomatic tensions between the US and China, with Washington and Beijing viewing each other as strategic rivals. Harrison Li sees a November summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping as a missed opportunity to move his father’s case more forcefully toward a resolution, and wonders what additional steps he can take.

“You think: OK, what else can you do? What is something that you are not doing well, that you could do better or that you could do more of?” Li said.

Maryam Kamalmaz has had no trace of her father, Majd Kamalmaz, since the Texas psychologist was stopped at a checkpoint in Syria in 2017 after traveling there to visit an elderly relative. He remains one of several Americans missing in Syria, including journalist Austin Tice, despite a visit by Carstens in 2020 to negotiate their release.

“Other families know the condition of their loved ones. They know what’s going on. In my father’s case, there has been no trial, there has been no case. There’s nothing against him. He basically just disappeared into their system, completely disappeared,” Kamalmaz said.

Part of Carstens’ work involves regular communication with families. Sometimes the updates are cheerful, sometimes they are painful.

Just before Griner’s release, a representative from his office visited the sister of Paul Whelan, a Michigan corporate security manager who has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018, to personally break the news that Griner was coming home, but that Russia had denied her to liberate. brother as part of the exchange.

Carstens said such deals, in which a detainee is released from one country but not another, are “no small thing” and weigh heavily on his team.

“Unless someone steps off a plane, onto a tarmac, into the United States of America and into the arms of their loved ones, we will not win,” he said.

Whelan’s brother, David, released a statement after Grinner’s release trumpeting her freedom, while noting the “public disappointment” over his brother’s continued captivity.

In an interview, Whelan said he feels elated when the prisoners return, though he acknowledged his feelings are more nuanced when it comes to deals with Russia that don’t involve his brother. He regrets that his brother is not home, but also does not believe that the US government has diverted resources to other detainees that should have gone to his brother.

Despite the government’s recent wave of success with other detainees, he said he was pragmatic about the lack of an obvious solution.

At the end of the day, Whelan said: “I think the enemy is the Kremlin. And the people who can make the decision (to release him) are in the Kremlin.”