approach to addressing threats the United States faces from hostile nations, including transnational repression. (5) Throughout 2022, the Department of Justice charged a number of individuals with stalking, harassing, and illicitly acting as agents of foreign governments, who allegedly perpetrated transnational repression to silence United States residents who were critics of the People’s Republic of China. (6) In January 2023, the Department of Justice announced charges and arrests in a case involving an assassination plot directed from Iran against a critic of the regime. The Department stated, These charges are just the latest example of individuals in Iran directing deadly violence on U.S. soil. . (7) Transnational repression is a growing problem. The Department of Justice has reported an alarming rise in plots emanating from Iran, China, Russia, and elsewhere, targeting people in the United States . As of April 2023, Freedom House has documented 854 direct, physical cases of transnational repression that took place globally between 2014 and 2022. (8) Freedom House recorded a total of 79 new incidents of transnational repression globally committed by 20 governments in 2022. Two governments, Bangladesh and Djibouti, were added to the list of perpetrators, bringing the total number of states engaged in transnational repression around the world to 38. The number of countries where acts of transnational repression took place rose from 84 to 91 in 2022, including the United States, according to Freedom House. 3. Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that hostile nations and authoritarian regimes have increasingly and aggressively targeted individuals in the United States and persons outside the United States. Agents of these governments have acted outside diplomatic channels to threaten, intimidate, harass, surveil, stalk, silence, and even plot to physically harm or kidnap persons within U.S. borders. Although transnational repression often involves actions that are already prohibited by U.S. law, their