H.R. 9242: No American Left Behind Act

This bill would direct the Secretary of Defense to provide Congress with a report within 180 days on how the Department of Defense supports efforts to recover, repatriate, and account for U.S. nationals abroad who are dead, missing, unlawfully detained, or otherwise unaccounted for.

What the report would cover

• Cases involving Americans in areas of current or recent U.S. military operations, especially Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and certain parts of Africa.
• How the Defense Department works with the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell and the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict on contingency planning for rescues or recoveries.
• How regional military commands include hostage recovery or personnel recovery in their operational plans, and how those plans affect troop requirements, intelligence gathering, detainee access, and recovery options.
• The standards the department uses to decide when to use military assets for rescue or recovery in potentially hostile areas, including places where the U.S. has no permanent or temporary military presence.
• How the department keeps track of detained Americans in places where the U.S. no longer has a military presence.
• Any legal, policy, intelligence, or resource barriers that limit the department’s ability to help, along with recommendations to fix those problems.
• Whether existing authorities allow the department to delay or coordinate detainee transfers, releases, or partner detention arrangements when that could affect recovery, intelligence, or accountability efforts.
• Best practices used by other countries that have formal systems for recovering detained or deceased citizens, including efforts that continue long after fighting has ended.
• Whether the Pentagon could adopt a formal, lasting “No American Left Behind” doctrine and what it would mean for planning, resources, detainee policy, and coordination with other agencies.
• Specific support issues in cases involving deceased Americans whose remains have not been recovered, and in cases involving wrongful detention, missing persons, or unresolved status.

Other provisions

• The bill states Congress’s view that the U.S. should maintain a sustained, coordinated commitment to recovering Americans held abroad or otherwise unaccounted for.
• The report would generally be unclassified, but it may include a classified annex for sensitive details about certain cases.

Relevant Companies

None found.