Why It Matters

A recent Congressional Research Service report examines the practice of foreign governments reaching across borders to silence critics, activists, journalists, and diaspora communities, including those living in the United States. CRS describes transnational repression as both a human rights concern and a form of foreign interference affecting individuals and communities around the world.

Authoritarian governments face what researchers call an "illiberal paradox": they may rely economically or otherwise on emigrant communities while viewing political activism by those communities as a threat to regime stability. CRS says this tension is one factor associated with transnational repression.

The Trump administration's recent actions reflect competing policy signals. In March 2025, the United States imposed financial sanctions on six Hong Kong officials for using national security laws extraterritorially to intimidate, silence, and harass 19 pro-democracy activists. That same month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced visa restrictions targeting current or former foreign officials responsible for or complicit in forcing Uyghurs and other groups with protection concerns back to China.

At the same time, the administration paused nearly all U.S. foreign assistance in January 2025 and terminated numerous democracy and human rights projects, reportedly including some addressing transnational repression. In December, the Treasury Department removed sanctions against some individuals previously tied to a commercial spyware consortium after they reportedly "demonstrated measures to separate themselves" from it. CRS also notes that the State Department began soliciting proposals in July for a new project supporting research on transnational repression.

The Big Picture

The scope is broad. The State Department's human rights reports covering 2024 describe transnational repression in connection with 51 governments worldwide. Freedom House separately documented 1,375 incidents of direct, physical transnational repression committed by 54 governments between 2014 and 2025 across more than 100 countries, according to CRS.

Methods generally fall into four categories: direct physical attacks, including assassination and abduction; co-optation of institutions, including alleged abuse of Interpol systems; mobility controls such as passport revocations; and long-distance threats, including digital surveillance and intimidation of relatives. An emerging fifth category is financial transnational repression, which involves abusing anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing tools to restrict targets' access to financial services.

Digital tools have expanded governments' capabilities. The U.S. intelligence community reported that at least 74 countries contracted with private companies to obtain commercial spyware between 2011 and 2023. CRS notes that the intelligence community's annual threat assessments for 2025 and 2026 did not discuss transnational repression.

More than half of documented physical incidents through 2024 involved cooperation between governments, according to Freedom House data cited by CRS, with host governments acting on politically motivated Interpol notices, granting questionable extradition requests, or allowing perpetrators to kidnap and remove individuals from their territories. In February 2025, Thailand forcibly returned 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China in a potential breach of its human rights treaty obligations. Iranian government plots dating to 2020 have also sought to kidnap or kill an Iranian-American dissident in New York.

The Bottom Line

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024 required specific reporting on transnational repression in the State Department's annual human rights reports. The fiscal 2026 NDAA codified U.S. policy to combat the misuse of commercial spyware. H.R. 2139, H.R. 2158, and H.R. 2116 would bolster Department of Homeland Security efforts to prevent and counter transnational repression within the United States, while the Transnational Repression Policy Act, S. 2525 and H.R. 4829, would establish a broader U.S. policy, require an interagency strategy, and authorize training for federal, state, and local officials.

However, one tool Congress created decades ago remains unused. Section 6 of the Arms Export Control Act, enacted in 1981, prohibits arms sales to countries the president determines are engaged in a consistent pattern of intimidation or harassment against individuals in the United States. According to a Government Accountability Office report cited by CRS, the provision has never been invoked.

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