Two senators have introduced a bipartisan bill in a bid to curb the state-sanctioned crime of forced organ harvesting in China and protect vulnerable groups from harm.
The list would be updated annually or as new information becomes available.
The sanctions, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), would block the perpetrators from entering the United States or conducting U.S.-based transactions. The individuals would also lose any current U.S. visa and any immigration benefits they might have.
Sanction violation could lead to up to $250,000 in civil penalties, or a maximum of $1 million and 20 years in prison in criminal punishment.
“The Chinese Communist Party operates a brutal, state-sponsored organ harvesting industry that targets people for their faith,” Cruz said in a statement. “The CCP has in particular targeted Falun Gong practitioners, committing assaults on religious liberty and fundamental human rights. The United States should hold accountable those who have committed these atrocities.”
He expressed appreciation for Merkley for joining him on the bill and called on his colleagues to “expeditiously advance it.”
“Those harvested organs are used in transplants within China and are trafficked overseas,” noted the press release from Cruz.
Merkley, who, like Cruz, sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there needs to be ramifications for the human rights violations.
“China’s campaign of repression and human rights abuses continue to have horrific consequences, including reports of forced organ harvesting from vulnerable groups across the PRC,” he said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China. “We must stand up for the victims of these crimes, and our bipartisan effort holds the Chinese government accountable for its abuses.”
Under the bill, the secretary of State, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services and the director of the National Institutes of Health, would need to submit a report to Congress detailing the official and unofficial transplant policies in communist China. This would cover how the policies apply to prisoners of conscience, including practitioners of Falun Gong and other prisoners or victims.
The report would also cover the known or estimated annual transplant volume, voluntary donor number, assessment on organ sources, the time needed to procure an organ for transplant, as well as the plausibility of such a timetable. It would list the U.S. grants dated in the previous 10 years before the act’s enactment supporting China-based transplant research or China-U.S. collaboration in this field.
The officials would then outline their determination, in the report, on whether forced organ harvesting in China constitutes an “atrocity” as defined in the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act of 2018.
