Congress Tackles Transnational Repression as Authoritarian Regimes Target U.S. Diaspora

In the quiet spaces between nations, thousands of diaspora members living in the United States carry the weight of authoritarian reach — their words, their activism, their very presence abroad enough to endanger those they left behind. Congress is now confronting the reality that 51 governments have developed sophisticated, multi-layered systems to silence critics across borders, from digital surveillance to assassination, and that American policy has responded with more contradiction than coherence. The challenge before lawmakers is not merely legislative but moral: whether a democracy can pr