PlainBillCongress, translated.Legislation. Context. Public interest.Ordered to be Reported by Voice Vote.
Congressional Research Service
No official summary is available in the imported record yet.
People & committees
Rep. Pfluger, August [R-TX-11] · R–TX
Legislative record
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Ordered to be Reported by Voice Vote.
Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held
Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee by Voice Vote.
Subcommittee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held
Referred to the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.
Referred to the Committee on Homeland Security, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Referred to the Committee on Homeland Security, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Primary sources
Text links open the official source. We also preserved the text version used in the PlainBill explanation below.
No related bills are listed in this snapshot. This does not establish whether the proposal has appeared in earlier Congresses.
Source last updated: Sep 19, 2026. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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PlainBill explanation
Based on the full Introduced in House · 2025-03-14 text. This explanation has not received human editorial review. This overview describes the proposal’s major provisions; it does not establish what its real-world effects would be.
The bill would create a temporary Department of Homeland Security working group to study and monitor foreign governments’ efforts to intimidate, coerce, or harm people across borders, and related terrorism threats. It would cover qualifying actions occurring at least partly in the United States or targeting a legally defined “United States person.” The group would share information with government partners and publish threat assessments. Activities would have to respect constitutional rights and privacy, and the group would end seven years after enactment.
There is established a Working Group, to be known as the Transnational Repression Working Group (in this section referred to as the Working Group), within the Department, which shall be responsible for, in coordination with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, analyzing and monitoring transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
(C) The action— (i) occurs, in whole or in part, in the United States; or (ii) is committed against a United States person.
The Working Group shall ensure the dissemination to Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners, and the National Network of Fusion Centers, of information related to transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
The Director of Homeland Security Investigations shall post on a publicly available website of the Department the unclassified portion of each such assessment.
All activities carried out pursuant to this section— (1) shall be carried out in accordance with applicable constitutional, privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections; and (2) may not infringe upon the lawful exercise of free speech by United States persons.
The Working Group shall terminate on the date that is seven years after the date of the enactment of this section.
Section 1 names the proposal the Countering Transnational Repression Act of 2025.
This Act may be cited as the Countering Transnational Repression Act of 2025.
Section 2 expresses Congress’s view that these threats are real and growing and that the Department of Homeland Security should address them. This is a proposed statement of congressional opinion, rather than evidence that the bill would reduce those threats.
It is the sense of Congress that— (1) transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression by a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government to target individuals in the United States and persons outside of the United States are real and growing;
(3) the Department of Homeland Security must take steps to recognize, assess, and help address this threat, thereby reducing risks to the people of the United States.
Section 3 would add a working group to the Homeland Security Act of 2002. It would coordinate with the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis to analyze and monitor transnational repression and related terrorism threats.
Subtitle H of title VIII of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 451 et seq.) is amended by adding at the end the following new section:
There is established a Working Group, to be known as the Transnational Repression Working Group (in this section referred to as the Working Group), within the Department, which shall be responsible for, in coordination with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, analyzing and monitoring transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
The proposed definition of transnational repression includes efforts to coerce, harass, or threaten someone into acting for a foreign government; suppress or retaliate against the exercise of legally protected rights; killings outside lawful judicial process; and acts intended to advance those efforts.
(A) The action involves— (i) any effort intended to coerce, harass, or digitally or physically threaten, including by force or reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury or imprisonment of a person or an immediate family member of a person, a person to take an action in the interest of such a foreign government; (ii) any effort intended to harass or coerce, including by force or fear, a person to forebear from exercising the First Amendment rights of such person or any other right guaranteed to such person by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to retaliate against a person for having exercised such a right; (iii) an extrajudicial killing; or (iv) any act intended to further the efforts specified in clause (i), (ii), or (iii).
For that definition to apply, the action must be by a foreign government or its agent, serve that government’s interests, and occur at least partly in the United States or target a United States person. An agent can be an individual or an organization operating under a foreign government’s direction and control, including through its officials or entities.
The term transnational repression means an action of a foreign government or an agent of a foreign government that satisfies each of the following:
(B) The action is engaged in for or in the interests of such a foreign government. (C) The action— (i) occurs, in whole or in part, in the United States; or (ii) is committed against a United States person.
The term agent of a foreign government means an individual or entity that operates subject to the direction and control of— (A) a foreign government; or (B) an official or entity of such foreign government.
The bill uses an existing statutory definition of “United States person” without reproducing it. The supplied text therefore does not establish exactly which people or entities that term covers.
The term United States person has the meaning given such term in section 1637(d)(10) of the Carl Levin and Howard P. Buck McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2015 (50 U.S.C. 1708(d)(10)).
The Director of Homeland Security Investigations would appoint the working group’s director. That director would report to both the Secretary of Homeland Security and the investigations director on all administrative, operational, and security matters.
The head of the Working Group shall be a Director of the Transnational Repression Working Group, who shall be appointed by the Director of Homeland Security Investigations.
The Director of the Transnational Repression Working Group shall report to the Secretary and the Director of Homeland Security Investigations regarding all administrative, operational, and security matters of the Working Group.
The investigations director would have to provide enough employees for the group’s duties, including at least one employee dedicated to privacy-law compliance. The group could also use temporarily assigned specialists from intelligence agencies or other federal agencies its director considers appropriate, with or without reimbursement and subject to applicable law.
The Director of Homeland Security Investigations shall ensure the Working Group— (A) has a sufficient number of employees to perform required duties; and (B) has at least one employee dedicated to ensuring compliance with privacy laws and regulations.
The Working Group may accept and employ detailees with expertise in countering transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression or related fields from any element of the intelligence community, or any other Federal agency the Director of the Transnational Repression Working Group determines appropriate, with or without reimbursement, consistent with applicable laws and regulations regarding such employees.
The working group would review information gathered by federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial partners and the National Network of Fusion Centers, incorporating it when appropriate. It would also distribute relevant information to those partners. The bill describes the network as a decentralized arrangement supporting analysis and nationwide homeland-security information sharing.
The Working Group, in coordination with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, shall review information relating to transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression that is gathered by Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners, and the National Network of Fusion Centers, and incorporate such information, as appropriate, into the Working Group’s own information relating to transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
The Working Group shall ensure the dissemination to Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial partners, and the National Network of Fusion Centers, of information related to transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
The term National Network of Fusion Centers means a decentralized arrangement of fusion centers intended to enhance individual State and urban area fusion centers’ ability to leverage the capabilities and expertise of all such fusion centers for the purpose of enhancing analysis and homeland security information sharing nationally.
An initial assessment would be due within 180 days after enactment, followed by annual assessments for seven years. Each would cover the preceding 12 months and go to the specified House and Senate homeland-security committees. The investigations director would submit it through the working group’s director, coordinating with the named intelligence offices and the Federal Bureau of Investigation as appropriate.
Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section and annually thereafter for seven years, the Director of Homeland Security Investigations, acting through the Director of the Transnational Repression Working Group, in coordination with the Office of Intelligence and Analysis and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as appropriate, shall submit to the Committee on Homeland Security of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs of the Senate a report that assesses incidents of transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression during the immediately preceding 12 months.
Assessments would analyze attempted incidents and provide numerical analysis, including counts of individuals responsible for or associated with repression or related terrorism threats. They would identify each such individual’s citizenship or nationality and examine the relevant foreign governments’ roles in enabling, preventing, mitigating, and responding to the threats.
(i) An analysis of attempted incidents of transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression. (ii) A quantitative analysis of transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression, including the number of individuals responsible for or associated with such transnational repression or terrorism threats related to transnational repression, and an identification of the country of citizenship or nationality of each such individual, and the roles of the foreign governments of such countries in enabling, preventing, mitigating, and responding to transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
Assessments would describe federal investigative efforts to disrupt repression and related terrorism threats, while protecting sensitive investigation and operational information. The investigations director could include other matters considered relevant.
(iii) Subject to appropriate protections for sensitive information regarding law enforcement investigations and operations, a description of efforts by the Federal Government to disrupt through investigation transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression. (iv) Any other matters the Director of Homeland Security Investigations determines relevant.
Assessments would be unclassified and their unclassified portions publicly posted. A classified attachment would be allowed only to protect intelligence sources and methods related to the assessment.
Each assessment under subparagraph (A) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified annex only for the protection of intelligence sources and methods relating to the matters contained in such assessment. The Director of Homeland Security Investigations shall post on a publicly available website of the Department the unclassified portion of each such assessment.
Within one year after enactment, the Secretary would have to carry out research and development to the extent practicable, including operational testing of technologies and techniques to improve support for federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial officials countering these threats. The provision names three officials with whom the Secretary would coordinate.
Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this section, the Secretary, in coordination with the Under Secretary for Science and Technology of the Department, the Director of the Transnational Repression Office, and the Director of Homeland Security Investigations, shall, to the extent practicable, carry out research and development, including operational testing, of technologies and techniques for enhancing the Department’s support to Federal, State, local, Tribal, and territorial officials relating to countering transnational repression and terrorism threats related to transnational repression.
All activities under the new section would have to comply with applicable constitutional, privacy, civil-rights, and civil-liberties protections. They could not infringe on lawful free speech by United States persons.
All activities carried out pursuant to this section— (1) shall be carried out in accordance with applicable constitutional, privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties protections; and (2) may not infringe upon the lawful exercise of free speech by United States persons.
The working group would terminate seven years after enactment.
The Working Group shall terminate on the date that is seven years after the date of the enactment of this section.
The supplied actions snapshot, updated September 19, 2026, records introduction on March 14, 2025, subcommittee approval to forward the bill to the full committee by voice vote on March 25, and an order to report the bill by voice vote on April 9. These entries document committee-stage progress, not enactment.
Source snapshot updated 2026-09-19T23:23:16Z.
2025-03-14: Introduced in House
2025-03-25: Forwarded by Subcommittee to Full Committee by Voice Vote.
2025-04-09: Ordered to be Reported by Voice Vote.
A closer look
Reviewed version: Introduced in House · 2025-03-14. These findings describe provisions and who may benefit; they are not judgments of waste, corruption, or motive.
This review covers the supplied bill text. “None identified” does not rule out provisions in later versions or accompanying reports and disclosures.
Provisions outside the bill’s main subject, or policy changes attached to appropriations.
None identified in the reviewed text
No unrelated provision or policy change attached to appropriations was identified in the complete supplied introduced text. This conclusion is limited to that version and does not establish absence in other versions or accompanying materials.
Spending directed to particular recipients or places outside ordinary competitive or formula-based allocation.
None identified in the reviewed text
No congressionally directed spending for particular recipients or places was identified in the complete supplied introduced text. This conclusion is limited to that version; formal earmark status in other versions or accompanying materials is not established.
Narrow exceptions, exemptions, or preferential treatment that warrant a closer look.
None identified in the reviewed text
No materially narrow preferential treatment, special exemption, or carve-out was identified in the complete supplied introduced text. This conclusion is limited to that version and does not establish absence in other versions or accompanying materials.
Full text preserved for this analysis. Legislative record snapshot: Sep 19, 2026. How PlainBill uses AI