Michigan’s Paul Whelan fears being left behind again in Russia. His family speaks up

Democratic U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of Birmingham, who represented Whelan in Congress starting in 2019, co-chairs a congressional task force launched in 2021 devoted to these hostages and wrongfully detained Americans abroad and their families, as U.S. citizens are increasingly targeted abroad, she said.

“This has been years of diplomatic foreign policy negotiations, top-secret briefings, issuing of resolutions,” Stevens said. “It is work that I have oriented my office around, and it's not something that any of us asked for. Not something that the Whelans asked for, not something that I asked for.”

Stevens said Whelan's imprisonment underscores how Russia operates.

"I long have had the view that Paul Whelan's detainment and kidnapping and false imprisonment has been the canary in the coal mine for Russia's outright lawlessness on the global stage that led to the steps that they took to wrongfully invade Ukraine," Stevens said.