FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a ceremony to raise the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag at the State Department, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FBI Director Kash Patel walks off after watching a ceremony to raise the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag at the State Department, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
FBI Director Kash Patel speaks during a ceremony to raise the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag at the State Department, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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FBI Director Kash Patel walks off after watching a ceremony to raise the Hostage and Wrongful Detainee flag at the State Department, Thursday, March 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI will work to “zero out†the population of Americans detained or held hostage in foreign countries, Director Kash Patel said Thursday at a State Department ceremony honoring the hostage community and their families.
“My singular promise to you in this community is that I will do everything as the director of the FBI to marshal the resources necessary to make sure that no other American family feels that pain,†he said during an event to observe the second-ever U.S. Hostage and Wrongful Detainee Day.
Patel spoke as the Trump administration is working to bring home Americans from multiple countries, including and . The government is also trying to secure the release of remaining American hostages , with Adam Boehler, President pick to be special envoy for hostage affairs, leading direct talks with the militant group.
“We still don’t have everybody back," Patel said. “Whatever lawful authorities we have at the FBI, we are going to give 24/7, 365 days to make sure that we zero out this number and to make sure we prevent others from going into situations that you are now all too familiar with.â€
The FBI houses a multiagency fusion cell that handles hostage cases involving Americans in foreign countries. The State Department, meanwhile, relies on a special presidential envoy — the position for which Boehler has been tapped — to negotiate the release of Americans who are wrongfully detained.
“When the president asked me if there was any job that I thought that I wanted to focus on," Boehler said Thursday, "I told him that this was the only one I would look at because I think there’s nothing more important for this country than for everyone to know that if they’re abroad and they’re taken, that the country has their back.â€
The Trump administration last month returned home , an American schoolteacher jailed in Russia on drug charges, as part of a prisoner swap with Moscow.
