Washington, D.C. – Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley and Texas’ U.S. Senator John Cornyn today teamed up to introduce new bipartisan legislation to impose sanctions on foreign government officials involved in the forced deportation of Uyghurs and other at-risk individuals to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The Preventing the Forced Return of Uyghurs Act follows reports from earlier this year of governments forcibly repatriating Uyghurs to China, in direct violation of international law and basic human rights. Further reporting has exposed the PRC’s ongoing abuses of Uyghurs, who remain subject to the evils of slave labor.
“The forced return of Uyghurs to the PRC is a shameful violation of human rights, and the United States must be steadfast in calling out those foreign officials who capitulate to Beijing’s coercion,” said Merkley. “The bipartisan Preventing the Forced Return of Uyghurs Act is a strong tool to hold these foreign officials accountable and reaffirm the United States’ role as a global leader on dignity and freedom.”
“The Chinese Communist Party continues to wield its oppressive hand on religious and ethnic minorities, particularly Uyghurs, stripping them of basic human rights and subjecting them to concentration and re-education camps, starvation, torture, and disappearances,” said Cornyn. “Any foreign government official who forcibly returns Uyghurs or members of any religious or ethnic minority group to China – where they would face certain persecution and possibly death – should not be welcome in the United States, and I’m proud to introduce this legislation to prevent those who are complicit from obtaining a visa or any other immigration benefit under our laws.”
As a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and past Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Merkley has worked tirelessly to shine a light on repression by the Chinese government, including its targeting of Uyghurs, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, and other vulnerable groups. Notably, he authored the bipartisan Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act with then-Senator Marco Rubio, which bans U.S. imports of products made with Uyghur forced labor in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China.
Full text of the Preventing the Forced Return of Uyghurs Act can be found by clicking here.
