Amid pressure, Biden to sign executive order bolster efforts to get home hostages held abroad

WASHINGTON – As pressure mounts for the Biden administration to get high-profile hostages in Russia back to the United States, President Joe Biden is signing an executive order Tuesday to help bring home Americans wrongfully detained abroad.

The order will allow the government to share more information with families of hostages and allows the administration to sanction those who are involved in wrongfully detaining Americans.

The latest

• Pressure protests: A number of families who have members detained abroad will be traveling to Washington D.C. this week and next week to call on Biden to do more to get their loved ones home.

• Who is a hostage in Russia?: WNBA star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, a former Marine, are both detained in Russia. Griner was arrested on charges of possessing cannabis oil while returning to play for a Russian team. Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on an espionage conviction.

• How has communication been?: Biden sent a letter to Griner earlier this month saying he will do all he can to get her home after the WNBA star hand-wrote her own letter to the president. Griner’s letter was relayed to Biden on July 4.

What's about to happen

The State Department on Tuesday will also issue a new risk indicator for Americans traveling abroad.

The new advisory, known as the “D” indicator — for detention — will inform American travelers of the risk of wrongful detention by a foreign government. Burma, China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and Russia will receive that risk indicator.

Top takeaways

Families of hostages have been critical of Biden for not getting more of those held abroad home.

After she spoke out about the lack of contact from the president, Biden held his first call with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, earlier this month. Biden also called Whelan’s sister after she expressed disappointment and frustration that the president hadn’t reached out to their family.

What they are saying

• White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters last week that Biden is “laser-focused on a government-to-government solution” to get Griner and Whelan home to the United States.

• ″As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote in a letter given to Biden on July 4. “Please do all you can to bring us home. I voted for the first time in 2020 and I voted for you. I believe in you. I still have so much good to do with my freedom that you can help restore.”

• The Bring Our Families Home Campaign, a group for people who have family members detained abroad, was critical of Biden’s lack of communication with hostages' families.

• “These families refuse to be involuntary players in a real-life version of the Hunger Games, but that is one of the predictable human costs of the White House’s decide-not-to-decide strategy when it comes to hostages and wrongful detainees,” the group wrote in a letter on July 6.

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Reach Rebecca Morin at Twitter @RebeccaMorin_

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden signs executive order to help free hostages abroad