Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025
Floor Speech
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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1503) to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 1503
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025''. SEC. 2. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
It shall be the policy of the United States--
(1) to combat international trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs;
(2) to promote the establishment of voluntary organ donation systems with effective enforcement mechanisms in bilateral diplomatic meetings and in international health forums;
(3) to promote the dignity and security of human life in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted on December 10, 1948; and
(4) to hold accountable persons implicated, including members of the Chinese Communist Party, in forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs. SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Appropriate committees of congress.--The term ``appropriate committees of Congress'' means--
(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate; and
(B) the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives.
(2) Forced organ harvesting.--The term ``forced organ harvesting'' means the removal of one or more organs from a person by means of coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, or abuse of power or a position of vulnerability.
(3) Organ.--The term ``organ'' has the meaning given the term ``human organ'' in section 301(c)(1) of the National Organ Transplant Act (42 U.S.C. 274e(c)(1)).
(4) Trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs.--The term ``trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs'' means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of a person for the purpose of removing one or more of such person's organs, by means of--
(A) coercion;
(B) abduction;
(C) deception;
(D) fraud;
(E) abuse of power or a position of vulnerability; or
(F) transfer of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over a person described in the matter preceding subparagraph (A). SEC. 4. AUTHORITY TO DENY OR REVOKE PASSPORTS.
(a) In General.--The Secretary of State may refuse to issue a passport to any individual who has been convicted of an offense under section 301 of the National Organ Transplant Act (42 U.S.C. 274e) and is subject to imprisonment or parole or other supervised release as the result of such conviction if such individual, in the commission of such an offense, used a passport or crossed an international border.
(b) Revocation.--The Secretary of State may revoke a passport previously issued to any individual described in subsection (a). SEC. 5. REPORTS ON FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING AND TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS FOR PURPOSES OF THE REMOVAL OF ORGANS IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.
The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151 et seq.) is amended--
(1) in section 116 (22 U.S.C. 2151n), by adding at the end the following:
``(h) Forced Organ Harvesting and Trafficking in Persons for Purposes of the Removal of Organs.--
``(1) In general.--The report required by subsection (d) shall include an assessment of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs in each foreign country.
``(2) Definitions.--In this subsection:
``(A) Forced organ harvesting.--The term `forced organ harvesting' means the removal of one or more organs from a person by means of coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, or abuse of power or a position of vulnerability.
``(B) Organ.--The term `organ' has the meaning given the term `human organ' in section 301(c)(1) of the National Organ Transplant Act (42 U.S.C. 274e(c)(1)).
``(C) Trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs.--The term `trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs' means the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of a person for the purpose of removing one or more of such person's organs, by means of--
``(i) coercion;
``(ii) abduction;
``(iii) deception;
``(iv) fraud;
``(v) abuse of power or a position of vulnerability; or
``(vi) transfer of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over a person described in the matter preceding clause (i).''; and
(2) in section 502B (22 U.S.C. 2304)--
(A) by redesignating the second subsection (i) (relating to child marriage status) as subsection (j); and
(B) by adding at the end the following:
``(k) Forced Organ Harvesting and Trafficking in Persons for Purposes of the Removal of Organs.--
``(1) In general.--The report required by subsection (b) shall include an assessment of forced organ harvesting and trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs in each foreign country.
``(2) Definitions.--In this subsection, the terms `forced organ harvesting', `organ', and `trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs' have the meanings given those terms in section 116(h)(2).''. SEC. 6. IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS WITH RESPECT TO FORCED ORGAN HARVESTING OR TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS FOR PURPOSES OF THE REMOVAL OF ORGANS.
(a) List Required.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a list of each person that the President determines funds, sponsors, or otherwise facilitates forced organ harvesting or trafficking in persons for purposes of the removal of organs.
(b) Imposition of Sanctions.--The President shall impose the following sanctions with respect to a person on the list required by subsection (a):
(1) Property blocking.--The President shall exercise all of the powers granted by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (except that the requirements of section 202 of such Act (50 U.S.C. 1701) shall not apply) to the extent necessary to block and prohibit all transactions in all property and interests in property of the person if such property and interests in property are in the United States, come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person.
(2) Aliens inadmissible for visas, admission, or parole.--
(A) Visas, admission, or parole.--In the case of an individual, that individual is--
(i) inadmissible to the United States;
(ii) ineligible to receive a visa or other documentation to enter the United States; and
(iii) otherwise ineligible to be admitted or paroled into the United States or to receive any other benefit under the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 et seq.).
(B) Current visas revoked.--
(i) In general.--The visa or other entry documentation of the individual shall be revoked, regardless of when such visa or other entry documentation is or was issued.
(ii) Immediate effect.--A revocation under clause (i) shall--
(I) take effect immediately; and
(II) automatically cancel any other valid visa or entry documentation that is in the individual's possession.
(c) Exceptions.--
(1) Exception relating to importation of goods.--
(A) In general.--The authorities and requirements to impose sanctions under subsection (b)(1) shall not include the authority or a requirement to impose sanctions on the importation of goods.
(B) Good defined.--In this paragraph, the term ``good'' means any article, natural or manmade substance, material, supply or manufactured product, including inspection and test equipment, and excluding technical data.
(2) Exception to comply with international obligations.-- Subsection (b)(2) shall not apply to the admission of an individual if the admission of the individual is necessary to comply with United States obligations under the Agreement between the United Nations and the United States of America regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations, signed at Lake Success June 26, 1947, and entered into force November 21, 1947, under the Convention on Consular Relations, done at Vienna April 24, 1963, and entered into force March 19, 1967, or under other applicable international agreements or treaties.
(3) Exception relating to the provision of humanitarian assistance.--Sanctions under this section may not be imposed with respect to transactions or the facilitation of transactions for--
(A) the sale of agricultural commodities, food, or medicine;
(B) the provision of vital humanitarian assistance;
(C) financial transactions relating to vital humanitarian assistance or for vital humanitarian purposes; or
(D) transporting goods or services that are necessary to carry out operations relating to vital humanitarian assistance.
(4) Waiver.--The President may, on a case-by-case basis and for periods not to exceed 180 days each, waive the application of sanctions or restrictions imposed with respect to a person under this section if the President certifies to the appropriate committees of Congress not later than 15 days before such waiver is to take effect that the waiver is vital to the national security interests of the United States.
(d) Implementation; Penalties.--
(1) Implementation.--The President may exercise all authorities provided under sections 203 and 205 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1702 and 1704) to carry out this section.
(2) Penalties.--A person that violates, attempts to violate, conspires to violate, or causes a violation of this section or any regulation, license, or order issued to carry out this section shall be subject to the penalties set forth in subsections (b) and (c) of section 206 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1705) to the same extent as a person that commits an unlawful act described in subsection (a) of that section.
(e) Definitions.--In this section--
(1) the term ``person''--
(A) means an individual or entity; and
(B) includes a non-state actor (as such term is defined in Public Law 114-281); and
(2) the term ``United States person'' means--
(A) a United States citizen or an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence to the United States; or
(B) an entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States, including a foreign branch of such an entity.
Mr. Speaker, we gather today to confront one of the most unconscionable human rights atrocities of our time. It is amazing that we have to speak about this. It is the State-sponsored, forced harvesting of human organs.
Innocent people, often prisoners of conscience, are being killed so that their vital organs can be removed and sold. This is a billion- dollar black market built on murder. It is a direct assault on every principle of human dignity and decency.
H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, is a bipartisan moral imperative. It holds perpetrators accountable and targets the heart of this depraved industry.
This bill sends a clear message: The United States will not be complicit. If you take part in forced organ harvesting, we are coming after you. It imposes strong sanctions, strengthens reporting requirements, and authorizes the denial or revocation of passports for convicted traffickers who cross borders to commit these crimes. I would say that is the least we could be doing.
The legislation rightly identifies those responsible, including members of the Chinese Communist Party, who have been credibly accused by human rights organizations and U.N. experts of orchestrating systematic, state-run organ harvesting, primarily targeting prisoners of conscience from religious and ethnic minority groups.
This is not speculation. The evidence is overwhelming. International investigations, eyewitness testimony, and growing data confirm that these abuses are occurring on a massive scale. They are crimes against humanity.
The bill is a necessary tool to fight that evil. It aligns our foreign policy with our core values: human rights, rule of law, and the sanctity of life. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I am proud to support it.
I thank my colleagues, Mr. Smith of New Jersey and Mr. Keating of Massachusetts, for leading this bipartisan effort. The bill passed the Foreign Affairs Committee with broad, bipartisan support, and I urge my colleagues to join in advancing it on the floor today.
We must make it unmistakably clear: Forced organ harvesting will not be tolerated. It will not be tolerated in this world, and those who carry it out, support it, or profit from it will face serious consequences.
House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC, May 1, 2025. Hon. Brian Mast, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Mast: I write regarding H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025. Provisions of this bill fall within the Judiciary Committee's Rule X jurisdiction, and I appreciate that you consulted with us on those provisions. The Judiciary Committee agrees that it shall be discharged from further consideration of the bill so that it may proceed expeditiously to the House floor.
The Committee takes this action with the understanding that forgoing further consideration of this measure does not in any way alter the Committee's jurisdiction or waive any future jurisdictional claim over these provisions or their subject matter. We also reserve the right to seek appointment of an appropriate number of conferees in the event of a conference with the Senate involving this measure or similar legislation.
I ask that you please insert this letter in the Congressional Record during consideration of H.R. 1503 on the House floor. I appreciate the cooperative manner in which our committees have worked on this matter, and I look forward to working collaboratively in the future on matters of shared jurisdiction. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely, Jim Jordan, Chairman. ____ House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Washington, DC, May 1, 2025. Hon. Jim Jordan, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.
Dear Chairman Jordan: Thank you for consulting with the Committee on Foreign Affairs and agreeing to be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, so that the measure may proceed expeditiously to the House floor.
I agree that your forgoing further action on this measure does not in any way diminish or alter the jurisdiction of your committee or prejudice its jurisdictional prerogatives on this measure or similar legislation in the future. I would support your effort to seek appointments of any appropriate number of conferees from your committee to any House-Senate conference of this legislation.
I will submit the exchange of letters to be published in the Congressional Record. I appreciate your cooperation regarding this legislation and look forward to continuing to work together on matters of shared jurisdiction during this Congress. Sincerely, Brian J. Mast, Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his support and for yielding this time.
Mr. Speaker, every year under Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party, tens of thousands of young women and men, average age 28, are murdered in cold blood to steal their internal organs for profit or to be transplanted into Communist Party cadres, leaders and members alike.
These crimes against humanity are unimaginably cruel and painful. Between two and six internal organs per victim are extracted. It is murder masquerading as medicine.
Ethnic groups targeted include Uyghurs, who suffer from Xi Jinping's ongoing genocide, and the Falun Gong, whose peaceful meditation and exercise practices and exceptional good health make their organs highly desirable.
The Chinese Communist Party has declared the Falun Gong practitioners to be an evil cult fit for butchering.
Mr. Speaker, over the years I have chaired several hearings on this barbaric abuse, and 2 years ago, on March 27, the House passed my bill, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, 413-2.
Like many other House-passed bills, however, it died in the Senate. If approved today, I respectfully appeal to the Senate to pass it this time.
Special thanks to Majority Leader Scalise, Chairman Mast, and Ranking Member Meeks for ensuring reconsideration in this new Congress, and special thanks to Bill Keating for cosponsoring.
Mr. Speaker, I have chaired several hearings over the years on forced organ harvesting beginning over one-quarter of a century ago. In June of 1998, 27 years ago, I chaired my first hearing on forced organ harvesting in China. A Chinese security officer testified that he and other security agents were executing patients with the doctors right there and the ambulances right there ready to put them in the back to take their organs after the bullets were fired.
At one hearing in September of 2015, Ethan Gutmann, a true expert and author of the book ``The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem,'' has testified more than half a dozen times in our hearings. Mr. Gutmann has pointed out that in 1994, the first live organ harvest of death-row prisoners was performed on the execution grounds of Xinjiang in northwest China.
He points out that over the years it just kept building and growing, and then by the year 2005 the apparatus was in place in order to systematically slaughter all of these wonderful people in order to take their organs.
Ethan Gutmann today says that the prisoners' organs in Xinjiang are being harvested at a rate that translates annually, every year, into 25,000 to 50,000 victims. That is 25,000 to 50,000 Uyghurs, along with Kazakhs and other central Asians.
He also points out that if we use the lower number, we are talking about 175,000 murdered victims, all young people, for their organs in a very, very short period of time.
The Falun Dafa Information Center, which does a lot of good work for the Falun Gong, points out too that it is very hard to get precise information. It is a dictatorship and a closed society. They said the number had even jumped to 20,000 victims by 2018.
At another hearing about forced organ harvesting in China, we heard expert testimony from Sir Geoffrey Nice, who conducted the world's first global independent legal analysis of forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.
Sir Geoffrey Nice said that forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale. He said the Falun Gong and the Uyghurs in the PRC each qualify as a group for purposes of the crime of genocide.
Robert Destro, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, testified as well at that hearing: ``The size and scope of the organ harvesting and organ trafficking `market' is staggering.''
Mr. Speaker, we also know that there are hospitals dedicated just to dealing with and helping to assist Chinese Communist Party leaders. One of them is the Army Hospital 301 in Beijing. Where do they get these victims? From the very groups of people who they hate so much: the Uyghurs, the Falun Gong, and some others.
We have introduced again this year the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act to amend the Foreign Assistance Act to require the imposition of serious sanctions on any person the President determines funds, sponsors, or otherwise facilitates forced organ harvesting or trafficking for purposes of the removal of organs. If enacted into law, it requires very comprehensive reporting on this, which has not happened and needs to happen.
What does all this mean, really? It means civil penalties of up to $250,000 and criminal penalties, including a fine of up to $1 million and imprisonment for not more than 20 years or both.
Mr. Speaker, we are serious about sanctioning this egregious human rights abuse.
Sanctions also include blocking and prohibiting all transactions in property and interests in property and making such persons ineligible to come into this country if they are a foreigner and ineligible for a visa.
State-sponsored forced organ harvesting is big business for Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, and we will not and cannot rest until we stop it.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the organizations to my left, a group of 9 organizations--there are now 10; another has joined--that support and called for passage of this bill. These are great human rights organizations, and I include in the Record a May 4, 2025, letter from them. May 4, 2025. Re Vote in favor of the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025.
Dear Representative: We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, ask you to vote in favor of HR 1503, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025, sponsored in the House by Rep. Smith (R-NJ) and Rep. Keating (D-MA).
Forced organ harvesting and organ trafficking are interlinked crimes where organs are taken from victims through coercion or without informed consent and sold illegally. This means that patients undergoing organ transplants abroad are at-risk of receiving trafficked organs.
In many countries, impoverished people are targeted and coerced to sell an organ from which the traffickers make a significant profit. The `donor' is left without medical care and with significant health risks.
In China the situation is vastly different. For years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically harvested the organs of prisoners of conscience, primarily Falun Gong practitioners, and there is mounting evidence of Muslim Uyghurs being targeted as well.
Since 2015, China's organ transplantation system has claimed to only source organs from voluntary donors, but evidence demonstrates that this data has been falsified. A close examination shows that Chinese hospitals have performed at least several times more transplants than even the largest estimates of death row prisoners can account for.
In addition, China still does not abide by global standards of transparency in regards to organ sources, donor numbers and organ transplant operations performed, and a previous 1984 law allowing for sourcing of organs from prisoners without their consent or consent of their families if bodies are unclaimed, has not been repealed.
The China Tribunal, an independent, international people's tribunal chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), has concluded ``unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt--that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practiced for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims.'' The China Tribunal's judgment presents the first-ever independent legal analysis of all available evidence regarding forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience in China.
Multiple lines of evidence reviewed by the China Tribunal over 12 months included undercover phone calls to Chinese surgeons and officials who admitted that Falun Gong practitioners' organs are available on demand. Other undercover calls atso provided evidence that former Chinese President Jiang Zemin issued the order to harvest organs from Falun Gong practitioners. Based on the overall collective body of evidence reviewed, the China Tribunal concluded that state sanctioned forced organ harvesting in China amounts to Crimes Against Humanity.
There is also mounting evidence that the Uyghurs are now also a target for the CCP's forced organ harvesting campaign. For years, China has been engaged in a systematic campaign of persecution and oppression against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Hui, and other Muslim ethnic groups from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Up to 2 million of Xinjiang's Muslims are imprisoned in ``reeducation'' camps, subjected to forced labor, and recent reporting has shown that the Chinese Communist Party is also subjecting them to forced sterilization. The CCP's persecution of the Uyghurs has grown so severe that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has recently announced that ``there are reasonable grounds to believe that China is responsible for crimes against humanity.''
According to the report: ``Organ Procurement and Extrajudicial Execution in China: A Review of the Evidence,'' published by Matthew Robertson, China Studies Research Fellow with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, former Uyghur detainees ``now in exile have reported blood tests and physical examinations consistent with those necessary to establish organ health.'' The parallel between the forced organ examinations on Uyghurs, and those forced on Falun Gong practitioners, is deeply disturbing.
China has conducted a ``Physicals for All'' program in Xinjiang. For numerous years, this program has collected DNA samples and other data from Uyghurs, facilitating Chinese surveillance and making it easier to identify targets for organ harvesting in Xinjiang.
In June 2021, 12 United Nations Special Procedures mandate holders raised the issue of forced organ harvesting with the Chinese Government, in response to credible information that Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims and Christians are killed for their organs in China. In the correspondence, UN human rights experts called on China to ``promptly respond to the allegations of `organ harvesting' and to allow independent monitoring by international human rights mechanisms.''
To fight the global organ trafficking trade and to specifically address the CCP's practice of forced organ harvesting, the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025 expands the U.S. government's powers to combat organ harvesting, imposes harsher penalties for purchasing organs, prohibits the export of organ transplant surgery devices to entities responsible for human organ trafficking, imposes sanctions on individuals and government officials in countries who support human organ trafficking and forced organ harvesting, and introduces mandatory reporting on human organ trafficking in foreign countries and on U.S. institutions which train organ transplant surgeons.
We urge you to vote in favor of HR 1503--the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025.
Your support and passage of this legislation will ensure that the United States is combating and not complicit in the heinous practice of forced organ harvesting.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this legislation. Respectfully, Susie Hughes,
Executive Director, International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China. Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett,
President, Lantos Foundation. Kristina Olney,
Executive Director, The Remembrance Society. Dr. Ellen Kennedy,
Executive Director, World Without Genocide. Dr. Eric Patterson,
President, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Bob Fu,
Founding President, China Aid. Levi Browde,
Executive Director, Falun Dafa Information Centre. Turghunjan Alawudun,
President, World Uyghur Congress. Louisa Greve,
Director of Global Advocacy, Uyghur Human Rights Project.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, we must act now, and we must act decisively. The lives of so many lie in the balance.
Mr. Speaker, the United States has to lead with moral clarity. We have to send an unmistakable message that the human body is not a currency, it is not a commodity, and it is never for sale.
Forced organ harvesting is pure evil, and if we don't act, then we will be considered complicit.
Mr. Speaker, I urge every one of my colleagues to stand firm for human dignity and support H.R. 1503, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. MAST. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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