Executive Order 14348 explained · Executive Order · No disposition noted
Strengthening Efforts To Protect U.S. Nationals From Wrongful Detention Abroad
Signed: 2025-09-05 Published: 2025-09-10 Federal Register document: 2025-17509
Agencies: Executive Office of the President
Federal Register notes (as of 2026-10-19): See: EO 11295, August 5, 1966
What Executive Order 14348 says
Federal Register, Volume 90 Issue 173 (Wednesday, September 10, 2025) [Federal Register Volume 90, Number 173 (Wednesday, September 10, 2025)] [Presidential Documents] [Pages 43895-43897] From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] [FR Doc No: 2025-17509] Presidential Documents Federal Register / Vol. 90, No. 173 / Wednesday, September 10, 2025 / Presidential Documents [[Page 43895]] Executive Order 14348 of September 5, 2025 Strengthening Efforts To Protect U.S. Nationals From Wrongful Detention Abroad By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 1741 et seq.) (Levinson Act), it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose. The United States must strengthen efforts to protect U.S. nationals from wrongful detention abroad. The United States Government is committed to using every tool available to curb this coercive tactic used by foreign adversaries and must hold such adversaries to account. No American should fear being taken as a political pawn by rogue states. Wrongful detentions are an affront to the rule of law and aim to undermine our leadership on the world stage. The United States will not tolerate these attacks on our sovereignty and U.S. nationals. Sec. 2. Designation. The...
Opening of the official text; read it in full in the Federal Register.
Constitution Index
“VFA Constitution grade”
Constitutionally sound
Graded 2026-10-08
SI-generated grade · five published checks · not individually reviewed by a person · methodology
Executive Order 14348 is a core Article II foreign-affairs action implementing the Levinson Act to deter state hostage-taking through designation, sanctions, visa, assistance, export, and passport tools already authorized by Congress. It infringes no Bill of Rights protection, takes no property, denies no hearing, usurps no state power, and restricts domestic sovereignty only incidentally and with compelling justification. This SI review grades it Constitutional.
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✓ Passes · Enumerated powers
The President acts within Article II, Sections 1-3 executive power, Commander in Chief authority, and the foreign-affairs and reception power, expressly invoking the Constitution and laws including the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, 22 U.S.C. 1741 et seq. Congress separately authorized each response tool cited: IEEPA, Immigration and Nationality Act, Foreig… -
✓ Passes · Bill of Rights
No First through Tenth Amendment right is infringed. The Order imposes sanctions, visa inadmissibility, foreign assistance and export restrictions, and passport travel restrictions on foreign states and officials, not domestic speech, press, religion, assembly, arms, or criminal defendants. Geographic passport restrictions under 22 U.S.C. 211a regulate travel to designated hostile states; under lo… -
✓ Passes · Individual sovereignty
The Order directs government-to-government accountability for wrongful detention and does not restrict domestic person, property, speech, labor, or belief. Any incidental burden, such as inability to use a U.S. passport for tourist travel to a designated detaining state under Section 3(d), is narrowly tied to the compelling constitutional justification of protecting U.S. nationals from hostage-tak… -
✓ Passes · Decentralization
Protection of U.S. nationals detained abroad, designation of foreign governments, sanctions, immigration exclusion, and passport policy are inherently national foreign-affairs functions that individuals, counties, and single states cannot perform. The Order does not displace local or state police powers or commandeer state governments, so it respects the Tenth Amendment by operating at the minimum… -
✓ Passes · Due process and takings
No person is deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process under the Fifth Amendment, and no taking without just compensation occurs. Sanctions under IEEPA and visa actions target foreign governments and their agents and are implemented through existing statutes that contain their own notice, licensing, waiver, and judicial review procedures. Section 3 expressly requires action only '…
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