119-hr3122

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3122 Introduced in House

    (IH) ]

<DOC>

119th CONGRESS
 1st Session
 H. R. 3122

 To advance United States national interests by prioritizing the 
 protection of internationally recognized human rights and development 
of the rule of law in relations between the United States and Vietnam, 
 and for other purposes.

_______________________________________________________________________

 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

 April 30, 2025

 Mr. Smith of New Jersey (for himself, Mr. Correa, Mr. Tran, and Ms. 
 Lofgren) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
 Committee on Foreign Affairs, 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

_______________________________________________________________________

 A BILL

 To advance United States national interests by prioritizing the 
 protection of internationally recognized human rights and development 
of the rule of law in relations between the United States and Vietnam, 
 and for other purposes.

 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Vietnam Human 
Rights Act''.

    (b) Table of Contents.--The table of contents for this Act is as 
follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

Sec. 2. Findings.

Sec. 3. Statement of policy.

Sec. 4. Sanctions for human rights violations in Vietnam.

Sec. 5. Actions to combat online censorship and surveillance in 
 Vietnam.

Sec. 6. International religious freedom.

Sec. 7. Annual reports on United States-Vietnam human rights dialogue 
 meetings.

Sec. 8. Definitions.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

 Congress finds the following:

    (1) The relationship between the United States and the 
 Socialist Republic of Vietnam has grown substantially since the 
 end of the trade embargo in 1994, with annual trade between the 
 countries reaching $124,000,000,000 in 2023.

    (2) Expanded economic activity and trade between the United 
 States and Vietnam, has not been matched by greater political 
 freedom or substantial improvements in basic human rights for 
 the people of Vietnam.

    (3) Vietnam remains an authoritarian state ruled by the 
 Communist Party of Vietnam

    (CPV) which continues to expand 
 cooperation with the Communist Party of China

    (CCP) for example 
 recently joining General Secretary Xi Jinping's anti-United 
 States ``Community of Common Destiny''.

    (4) According to the Department of State, the Government of 
 Vietnam engaged the arbitrary arrest of political activists and 
 individuals who protested land seizures or other matters deemed 
 politically sensitive and detained at least 187 persons for 
 political or human rights activism.

SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY.

 It is the policy of the United States to--

    (1) embed human rights concerns across the full spectrum of 
 official interactions between the Government of the United 
 States and the Government of Vietnam to convey the entire 
 spectrum of United States interests in diplomatic engagement, 
 including that concrete human rights improvements are key parts 
 of trade, security, humanitarian cooperation, and economic 
 development;

    (2) assess Vietnam's progress toward respecting the basic 
 rights of workers, as described the report required by 

section 702 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 
 2003 (Public Law 107-228; 22 U.S.C. 2151n note), to ensure that 
 American workers are not disadvantaged by unfair labor 
 practices in Vietnam, and press for Vietnam's ratification of 
 ILO Conventions No. 87 (Freedom of Association and Protection 
 of the Right to Organize) and No. 98 (Right to Organize and 
 Collective Bargaining) and the recognition of independent labor 
 unions;

    (3) bar from entry into the United States imports from 
 Vietnam that include inputs made with forced labor from the 
 Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, such as cotton, aluminum, 
 polysilicon, rayon or other raw or finished materials 
 identified by the Department of Homeland Security, per the 
 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act; and

    (4) to protect United States nationals and United States 
 businesses by taking steps to address cyber-espionage and 
 transnational repression efforts conducted by Vietnam's 
 Ministry of Public Security.

SEC. 4. SANCTIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN VIETNAM.

    (a) Statement of 

=== Policy ===
-It is the policy of the United States to 
regularly assess reporting from intelligence, diplomatic, open source, 
congressional, and nongovernmental organization sources to identify and 
impose travel and financial restrictions on officials of the Government 
of Vietnam and other foreign persons working directly or indirectly for 
the Government of Vietnam who, based on credible evidence--

    (1) are--
        (A) responsible for, ordered, or are complicit in 
 the arbitrary detention, torture, enforced 
 disappearances of individuals in Vietnam seeking to 
 obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally 
 recognized human rights; or
        (B) responsible for, ordered, or are complicit in 
 acts of significant corruption, including the 
 expropriation of private or public assets for personal 
 gain, corruption related to government contracts or the 
 extraction of natural resources, bribery, or the 
 facilitation or transfer of the proceeds of corruption 
 to foreign jurisdictions;

    (2) are responsible for surveillance, censorship, or 
 detention of individuals in Vietnam for exercising the right to 
 the freedom of expression online or those responsible for 
 forcing United States companies to censor or reveal personally 
 identifiable information of any individual exercising this 
 right; or

    (3) are responsible for particularly severe violations of 
 religious freedom (as such term is defined in 

section 3 of the 
 International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6402)).

    (b) Sanctions.--

    (1) Global magnitsky human rights accountability act.--The 
 President should impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky 
 Human Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 2656 note) with 
 respect to any person described in subsection

    (a)

    (1) .

    (2) Department of state, foreign operations, and related 
 programs appropriations act, 2019.--The Secretary of State 
 should impose sanctions described in 

section 7031
            (c) (1)
        (A) of 
 the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related 
 Programs Appropriations Act, 2019 (division F of the 
 Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019; Public Law 116-6) with 
 respect to any person described in subsection

    (a)

    (2) .

    (3) Immigration and nationality act.--The Secretary of 
 State should impose the sanctions described in 

section 212

    (a)

    (2)
        (G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
 1182

    (a)

    (2)
        (G) ) to any foreign person described in subsection

    (a)

    (3) .
            (c) Report.--

    (1) In general.--The Secretary of State shall submit to the 
 appropriate congressional committees a report on sanctions 
 imposed on persons described in subsection

    (a) under the 
 provisions of law described in subsection

    (b) , including 
 information on--
        (A) the number of times sanctions were imposed on 
 such persons under such provisions of law;
        (B) the reasons for imposing such sanctions; and
            (C) where appropriate, an identification of the 
 sanctioned persons.

    (2) Inclusion.--The report required by this subsection 
 shall be submitted as part of the report required by section of 
 the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 
 (Public Law 107-228; 22 U.S.C. 2151n note).

SEC. 5. ACTIONS TO COMBAT ONLINE CENSORSHIP AND SURVEILLANCE IN 
 VIETNAM.

    (a) 

=== Findings ===
-Congress finds the following:

    (1) Vietnam continues to have one of the world's most 
 restrictive internet environments, with pervasive filtering of 
 content and the frequent arrests of bloggers and others whose 
 only offense is to advocate online for positions different than 
 those held by the government.

    (2) Since 2013, the Government of Vietnam has issued laws 
 and decrees, including a cybersecurity law, that increased its 
 ability to surveil its citizens without judicial oversight or 
 recourse. The cybersecurity law has been used to charge 
 Vietnamese citizens with vague crimes of ``negating 
 revolutionary achievements'' and distributing ``misleading 
 information among the people''. Vietnam's Penal Code and Decree 
 15 have also been used to render many legitimate online 
 activities illegal, leading to the arrest and detentions of 
 political prisoners.

    (3) Vietnam has recently enacted Decree 147, a stringent 
 internet regulation that took effect on December 25, 2024. 
 Decree 147 significantly tightens governmental control over the 
 internet in Vietnam, posing substantial threats to human rights 
 and freedom of speech by enforcing user identification, 
 facilitating state surveillance, and enabling rapid censorship 
 of online content.

    (4) The Government of Vietnam uses the cybersecurity law to 
 require United States companies to store information in 
 Vietnam, censor social media posts on demand, and to turn over 
 sensitive personal information about users. Companies such as 
 Facebook and Google comply with these requests, including 
 through the censorship of social media content of United States 
 citizens and permanent resident aliens.

    (5) United States companies Facebook and YouTube have been 
 instrumental in this crackdown, complying with Vietnam's 
 request to censor and ``geoblock'' content determined to 
 violate local Vietnamese law, which often contradicts 
 international law and Vietnam's treaty obligations.

    (6) In the first half of 2020, Facebook increased its 
 content restrictions in Vietnam by 983 percent, a dramatic 
 increase from the second half of 2019.

    (7) Facebook complied with 90 percent of Vietnam's 
 censorship requests and YouTube with 95 percent of such 
 requests, a fact the Government of Vietnam noted with 
 satisfaction.

    (8) As of December 31, 2023, the local legal provisions 
 that directly enabled Facebook and YouTube's censorship, 
 Articles 117 and 331 of Vietnam's Penal Code, were used to 
 imprison most of the 258 prisoners of conscience.

    (9) A free and open internet and the free flow of news and 
 information--
        (A) are fundamental components of United States 
 foreign policy because they foster economic growth, 
 protect individual liberties, and advance national 
 security;
        (B) are critical to the advancement of both United 
 States economic interests and internationally 
 recognized human rights globally; and
            (C) are severely hindered by Vietnam's 
 cybersecurity law which would allow the Government of 
 Vietnam to access private data, spy on users, require 
 United States businesses to turn over personally 
 identifiable information or block content of users, 
 including outside of Vietnam, and further restrict 
 already limited online speech.

    (b) Statement of 

=== Policy ===
-It is the policy of the United States 
to--

    (1) pursue an open and free internet in Vietnam as an issue 
 promoting United States economic interests and advancing 
 internationally-recognized human rights;

    (2) engage all appropriate United States Government 
 agencies to promote the free flow of news and information in 
 Vietnam;

    (3) use all appropriate United States diplomatic 
 instruments to pressure the Government of Vietnam to halt 
 requests to force social media companies to disclose identity, 
 or block accounts and content of individuals whose content the 
 Government disapproves;

    (4) use all available diplomatic instruments available to 
 pursue trade policies with Vietnam that expand internet freedom 
 and the information economy in Vietnam by--
        (A) ensuring the free flow of information across 
 the global network;
        (B) promoting stronger international transparency 
 rules; and
            (C) ensuring fair and equal treatment of online 
 services regardless of country of origin; and

    (5) require companies with contracts with the United States 
 Government that accede to requests of the Government of Vietnam 
 to engage in censorship or to reveal sensitive personal 
 information to report such requests to the Department of State 
 at the time such requests occur and to report the nature of 
 such requests and the companies' responses publicly.
            (c) Actions.--The Secretary of State is authorized to take such 
actions as may be necessary to--

    (1) prioritize the immediate distribution of censorship 
 circumvention tools for computers and smartphones in Vietnam; 
 and

    (2) prioritize projects to ensure the safety and privacy of 
 bloggers and journalists and human rights defenders in Vietnam.
            (d) Briefing.--The Secretary of State, in consultation with the 
Secretary of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative, 
should brief the appropriate congressional committees on an action plan 
outlining efforts to--

    (1) promote internet freedom and the free flow of news and 
 information in Vietnam; and

    (2) promote efforts to assist United States internet 
 companies to fulfill their stated missions to promote openness, 
 transparency, and connectivity by opposing requests by the 
 Government of Vietnam to remove political speech or content of 
 journalists, especially when content is removed from the 
 accounts of users in the United States.

SEC. 6. INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.

    (a) 

=== Findings ===
-Congress finds the following:

    (1) The promotion and protection of the universally 
 recognized right to the freedom of religion is a priority of 
 United States foreign policy as stated in 

section 402 of the 
 International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6442) 
 and the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and 
 Accountability Act of 2015 (title I of Public Law 114-26; 19 
 U.S.C. 4201 et seq.) which requires the Administration to take 
 religious freedom into account when negotiating trade 
 agreements.

    (2) In 2024, the United States Commission on International 
 Religious Freedom recommended to the United States Government 
 to designate Vietnam as a ``country of particular concern'', or 
 CPC, for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious 
 violations of religious freedom, as defined by the 
 International Religious Freedom Act

    (IRFA) , and to support 
 legislative efforts to improve religious freedom in Vietnam, 
 including the Vietnam Human Rights Act.

    (3) On December 29, 2023, in accordance with the 
 International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the Secretary of 
 State, for the second consecutive year, placed Vietnam on the 
 Special Watch List for having engaged in or tolerated severe 
 violations of religious freedom.

    (b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--

    (1) the designation of Vietnam as a country of particular 
 concern for religious freedom pursuant to 

section 402

    (b)

    (1) of 
 the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 
 6442

    (b)

    (1) ) would be a powerful and effective tool in 
 highlighting abuses of religious freedom in Vietnam and in 
 encouraging improvement in the respect for human rights in 
 Vietnam; and

    (2) the Secretary of State should, in accordance with the 
 recommendation of the United States Commission on International 
 Religious Freedom, designate Vietnam as a country of particular 
 concern for religious freedom.

SEC. 7. ANNUAL REPORTS ON UNITED STATES-VIETNAM HUMAN RIGHTS DIALOGUE 
 MEETINGS.

 

Section 702 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 
2003 (Public Law 107-228; 22 U.S.C. 2151n note) is amended by adding at 
the end the following:
 ``

    (9) Ending incidents of torture, police beatings, deaths 
 in police custody, and mob or societal violence targeting 
 religious groups or dissidents.
 ``

    (10) Returning properties of independent religious 
 communities or organizations that have been reportedly 
 expropriated by the Government of Vietnam or by government-
 sanctioned religious organizations.
 ``

    (11) Addressing individual claims by United States 
 citizens whose properties have been expropriated by the 
 Government of Vietnam without effective, prompt, and fair 
 compensation.
 ``

    (12) Implementing 

section 4 of the Girls Count Act of 
 (Public Law 114-24; 22 U.S.C. 2151 note) and how such section 
 has been applied in Vietnam.
 ``

    (13) Ensuring internet freedom and specific efforts to 
 ensure the safety and privacy of Vietnamese bloggers and 
 journalists on the internet or other forms of electronic 
 communication.''.

SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.

 In this Act:

    (1) Appropriate congressional committees.--Except as 
 otherwise provided, the term ``appropriate congressional 
 committees'' means the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the 
 House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations 
 of the Senate.

    (2) Internet.--The term ``internet'' has the meaning given 
 such term in 

section 231

    (e)

    (3) of the Communications Act of (47 
 U.S.C. 231

    (e)

    (3) ).

    (3) Personally identifiable information.--The term 
 ``personally identifiable information'' means data in a form 
 that identifies a particular person.
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