U.S. Senators from Both Parties Introduce the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act

The film State Organs exposes the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong and crimes such as live organ harvesting, drawing widespread attention

[People News] Two members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee — Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley — jointly introduced on Wednesday (March 11) the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, aimed at sanctioning those responsible for the forced harvesting of human organs in Communist China. The bill not only requires the president to submit to Congress a list of the relevant individuals, but also requires the secretary of state to submit to Congress a report on Communist China’s organ transplant policies and practices.

According to Voice of America, this bipartisan bill requires the U.S. president to submit to the relevant congressional committees a list of persons whom the president determines have knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated forced organ harvesting within the People’s Republic of China. All property of these individuals is prohibited from being held in the United States or traded with U.S. persons, the United States will deny them entry visas, and any existing visas may be revoked.

The bill also requires the U.S. secretary of state, in consultation with the secretary of health and human services and the director of the National Institutes of Health, to submit to the relevant congressional committees a report on the People’s Republic of China’s organ transplant policies and practices. The report is to include a summary of Chinese laws and actual policies involving organ transplants from Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience, a list of all U.S. grant funding for Chinese organ transplant research over the past ten years, and a determination of whether forced organ harvesting in Communist China constitutes an “atrocity” as defined in the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, passed in 2018.

Senator Cruz of Texas said in a statement: “The Chinese Communist Party operates a brutal, state-sponsored forced organ harvesting industry, and people are targeted because of their beliefs. The CCP has especially targeted Falun Gong practitioners, violating religious freedom and basic human rights. The United States should hold those who commit these atrocities accountable. I thank Senator Merkley for joining me in introducing this important bipartisan bill, and I urge our colleagues to move it forward quickly.”

Senator Merkley of Oregon said in a statement: “The CCP’s repression and human rights abuses continue to produce horrifying consequences, including reports of forced organ harvesting from vulnerable groups within the People’s Republic of China. We must stand up for the victims of these crimes, and our bipartisan effort is meant to hold the CCP government accountable for its human rights abuses.”

Falun Gong was banned and suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party in 1999. Cruz pointed out that the CCP carried out mass arrests and torture against Falun Gong practitioners and detained thousands of practitioners in labor camps, some of whom had their organs forcibly harvested. Some of these harvested organs were used in domestic transplant operations, while some were sold abroad.

Members of the U.S. Congress have repeatedly introduced bills concerning Falun Gong. The Falun Gong Protection Act, introduced by Republican Congressman Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, with similar content, was passed by the House of Representatives in both 2024 and 2025. Senator Cruz also introduced that bill in the Senate last year. In 2024, then-Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida introduced the Senate version of the Falun Gong Protection Act in the previous Congress. Rubio is currently the U.S. secretary of state.

Last May, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act, introduced by Republican Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey, was passed by the House of Representatives.

Under the U.S. legislative process, a bill must be passed in identical form by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and then signed by the president, in order to become law. △