I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 2158
To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize a dedicated
transnational repression working group within the Department of Home-
land Security to analyze and monitor transnational repression and ter-
rorism threats related to transnational repression, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH14, 2025
Mr. P
FLUGER(for himself, Mr. MAGAZINER, Mr. EVANSof Colorado, Mr.
O
GLES, Mr. MCCAUL, Mr. GUEST, and Ms. LEEof Florida) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Homeland Se-
curity, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period
to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee
concerned
A BILL
To amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to authorize
a dedicated transnational repression working group with-
in the Department of Homeland Security to analyze and
monitor transnational repression and terrorism threats
related to transnational repression, and for other pur-
poses.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
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SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 1
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Countering 2
Transnational Repression Act of 2025’’. 3
SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS. 4
It is the sense of Congress that— 5
(1) transnational repression and terrorism 6
threats related to transnational repression by a for-7
eign government or an agent of a foreign govern-8
ment to target individuals in the United States and 9
persons outside of the United States are real and 10
growing; 11
(2) agents acting on behalf of hostile foreign 12
governments employ a range of transnational repres-13
sion tactics, including making threats, intimidation, 14
harassment, surveillance, stalking, silencing, and 15
planning physical harm or the kidnapping of individ-16
uals in the United States; and 17
(3) the Department of Homeland Security must 18
take steps to recognize, assess, and help address this 19
threat, thereby reducing risks to the people of the 20
United States. 21
SEC. 3. WORKING GROUP TO COUNTER TRANSNATIONAL 22
REPRESSION. 23
(a) I
NGENERAL.—Subtitle H of title VIII of the 24
Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 451 et seq.) 25
is amended by adding at the end the following new section: 26
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‘‘SEC. 890E. WORKING GROUP TO COUNTER 1
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION. 2
‘‘(a) W
ORKINGGROUP.— 3
‘‘(1) E
STABLISHMENT.—There is established a 4
Working Group, to be known as the ‘Transnational 5
Repression Working Group’ (in this section referred 6
to as the ‘Working Group’), within the Department, 7
which shall be responsible for, in coordination with 8
the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, analyzing 9
and monitoring transnational repression and ter-10
rorism threats related to transnational repression. 11
‘‘(2) D
IRECTOR.— 12
‘‘(A) A
PPOINTMENT OF DIRECTOR .—The 13
head of the Working Group shall be a Director 14
of the Transnational Repression Working 15
Group, who shall be appointed by the Director 16
of Homeland Security Investigations. 17
‘‘(B) R
EPORTING.—The Director of the 18
Transnational Repression Working Group shall 19
report to the Secretary and the Director of 20
Homeland Security Investigations regarding all 21
administrative, operational, and security mat-22
ters of the Working Group. 23
‘‘(3) S
TAFFING.—The Director of Homeland 24
Security Investigations shall ensure the Working 25
Group— 26
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‘‘(A) has a sufficient number of employees 1
to perform required duties; and 2
‘‘(B) has at least one employee dedicated 3
to ensuring compliance with privacy laws and 4
regulations. 5
‘‘(4) D
ETAILEES AUTHORIZED .—The Working 6
Group may accept and employ detailees with exper-7
tise in countering transnational repression and ter-8
rorism threats related to transnational repression or 9
related fields from any element of the intelligence 10
community, or any other Federal agency the Direc-11
tor of the Transnational Repression Working Group 12
determines appropriate, with or without reimburse-13
ment, consistent with applicable laws and regula-14
tions regarding such employees. 15
‘‘(5) I
NFORMATION SHARING .—The Working 16
Group, in coordination with the Office of Intelligence 17
and Analysis, shall review information relating to 18
transnational repression and terrorism threats re-19
lated to transnational repression that is gathered by 20
Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners, 21
and the National Network of Fusion Centers, and 22
incorporate such information, as appropriate, into 23
the Working Group’s own information relating to 24
transnational repression and terrorism threats re-25
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lated to transnational repression. The Working 1
Group shall ensure the dissemination to Federal, 2
State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners, and the 3
National Network of Fusion Centers, of information 4
related to transnational repression and terrorism 5
threats related to transnational repression. 6
‘‘(6) H
OMELAND SECURITY ASSESSMENT ON 7
TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION .— 8
‘‘(A) A
NNUAL ASSESSMENTS .—Not later 9
than 180 days after the date of the enactment 10
of this section and annually thereafter for seven 11
years, the Director of Homeland Security Inves-12
tigations, acting through the Director of the 13
Transnational Repression Working Group, in 14
coordination with the Office of Intelligence and 15
Analysis and the Office of the Director of Na-16
tional Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of 17
Investigation, as appropriate, shall submit to 18
the Committee on Homeland Security of the 19
House of Representatives and the Committee 20
on Homeland Security and Governmental Af-21
fairs of the Senate a report that assesses inci-22
dents of transnational repression and terrorism 23
threats related to transnational repression dur-24
ing the immediately preceding 12 months. 25
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‘‘(B) CONTENTS.—Each assessment sub-1
mitted under subparagraph (A) shall also in-2
clude the following: 3
‘‘(i) An analysis of attempted inci-4
dents of transnational repression and ter-5
rorism threats related to transnational re-6
pression. 7
‘‘(ii) A quantitative analysis of 8
transnational repression and terrorism 9
threats related to transnational repression, 10
including the number of individuals re-11
sponsible for or associated with such 12
transnational repression or terrorism 13
threats related to transnational repression, 14
and an identification of the country of citi-15
zenship or nationality of each such indi-16
vidual, and the roles of the foreign govern-17
ments of such countries in enabling, pre-18
venting, mitigating, and responding to 19
transnational repression and terrorism 20
threats related to transnational repression. 21
‘‘(iii) Subject to appropriate protec-22
tions for sensitive information regarding 23
law enforcement investigations and oper-24
ations, a description of efforts by the Fed-25
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eral Government to disrupt through inves-1
tigation transnational repression and ter-2
rorism threats related to transnational re-3
pression. 4
‘‘(iv) Any other matters the Director 5
of Homeland Security Investigations deter-6
mines relevant. 7
‘‘(C) F
ORM.—Each assessment under sub-8
paragraph (A) shall be submitted in unclassi-9
fied form, but may include a classified annex 10
only for the protection of intelligence sources 11
and methods relating to the matters contained 12
in such assessment. The Director of Homeland 13
Security Investigations shall post on a publicly 14
available website of the Department the unclas-15
sified portion of each such assessment. 16
‘‘(7) S
UNSET.—The Working Group shall ter-17
minate on the date that is seven years after the date 18
of the enactment of this section. 19
‘‘(b) R
ESEARCH.—Not later than one year after the 20
date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary, in 21
coordination with the Under Secretary for Science and 22
Technology of the Department, the Director of the 23
Transnational Repression Office, and the Director of 24
Homeland Security Investigations, shall, to the extent 25
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practicable, carry out research and development, including 1
operational testing, of technologies and techniques for en-2
hancing the Department’s support to Federal, State, local, 3
Tribal, and territorial officials relating to countering 4
transnational repression and terrorism threats related to 5
transnational repression. 6
‘‘(c) I
MPLEMENTATION.—All activities carried out 7
pursuant to this section— 8
‘‘(1) shall be carried out in accordance with ap-9
plicable constitutional, privacy, civil rights, and civil 10
liberties protections; and 11
‘‘(2) may not infringe upon the lawful exercise 12
of free speech by United States persons. 13
‘‘(d) D
EFINITIONS.—In this section: 14
‘‘(1) A
GENT OF A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT .— 15
The term ‘agent of a foreign government’ means an 16
individual or entity that operates subject to the di-17
rection and control of— 18
‘‘(A) a foreign government; or 19
‘‘(B) an official or entity of such foreign 20
government. 21
‘‘(2) F
OREIGN GOVERNMENT .—The term ‘for-22
eign government’ means the government of a foreign 23
country. 24
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‘‘(3) FUSION CENTER.—The term ‘fusion cen-1
ter’ has the meaning given such term in subsection 2
(j) of section 210A. 3
‘‘(4) I
NTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY .—The term 4
‘intelligence community’ has the meaning given such 5
term in section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 6
1947 (50 U.S.C. 3003(4)). 7
‘‘(5) N
ATIONAL NETWORK OF FUSION CEN -8
TERS.—The term ‘National Network of Fusion Cen-9
ters’ means a decentralized arrangement of fusion 10
centers intended to enhance individual State and 11
urban area fusion centers’ ability to leverage the ca-12
pabilities and expertise of all such fusion centers for 13
the purpose of enhancing analysis and homeland se-14
curity information sharing nationally. 15
‘‘(6) T
RANSNATIONAL REPRESSION .—The term 16
‘transnational repression’ means an action of a for-17
eign government or an agent of a foreign govern-18
ment that satisfies each of the following: 19
‘‘(A) The action involves— 20
‘‘(i) any effort intended to coerce, har-21
ass, or digitally or physically threaten, in-22
cluding by force or reasonable fear of 23
death or serious bodily injury or imprison-24
ment of a person or an immediate family 25
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member of a person, a person to take an 1
action in the interest of such a foreign gov-2
ernment; 3
‘‘(ii) any effort intended to harass or 4
coerce, including by force or fear, a person 5
to forebear from exercising the First 6
Amendment rights of such person or any 7
other right guaranteed to such person by 8
the Constitution or laws of the United 9
States, or to retaliate against a person for 10
having exercised such a right; 11
‘‘(iii) an extrajudicial killing; or 12
‘‘(iv) any act intended to further the 13
efforts specified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii). 14
‘‘(B) The action is engaged in for or in the 15
interests of such a foreign government. 16
‘‘(C) The action— 17
‘‘(i) occurs, in whole or in part, in the 18
United States; or 19
‘‘(ii) is committed against a United 20
States person. 21
‘‘(7) U
NITED STATES PERSON .—The term 22
‘United States person’ has the meaning given such 23
term in section 1637(d)(10) of the Carl Levin and 24
Howard P. ‘Buck’ McKeon National Defense Au-25
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thorization Act for Fiscal year 2015 (50 U.S.C. 1
1708(d)(10)).’’. 2
(b) C
LERICALAMENDMENT.—The table of contents 3
in section 1(b) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 is 4
amended by inserting after the item relating to section 5
890D the following new item: 6
‘‘Sec. 890E. Working group to counter transnational repression.’’.
Æ
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