“Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act” Passes U.S. Senate

September 30, 2026

WASHINGTON — In a landmark move, the U.S. Senate has unanimously passed S.4009, the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act, marking the first time the Senate has passed binding legislation addressing the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and the abhorrent practice of forced organ harvesting.

“We applaud and are deeply grateful to the U.S. Senate for unanimously passing the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act,” said Levi Browde, Falun Dafa Information Center Executive Director. “For more than a quarter century, Falun Gong practitioners in China have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their faith—many of them for their organs. Today, the Senate has sent an unmistakable message to Beijing: those who carry out this crime will no longer do so with impunity.”

S.4009 is the first binding bill specifically addressing Falun Gong and forced organ harvesting to pass the U.S. Senate, although multiple Congressional resolutions condemning the persecution have been adopted since 1999. The House of Representatives unanimously passed the Falun Gong Protection Act in June 2024 and again in May 2025, and passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act by overwhelming bipartisan margins in 2023 and 2025, but none of those measures had previously received a vote in the Senate.

S.4009 was introduced on March 5, 2026, by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators including Adam Schiff (D-CA), Todd Young (R-IN), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Roger Marshall (R-KS), David McCormick (R-PA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and James Lankford (R-OK). 

“The Chinese Communist Party continues to target Falun Gong practitioners through its brutal, state-sponsored organ harvesting industry. These atrocities are an assault on religious liberty and fundamental human rights,” Cruz said in a statement. “I am proud to have worked with Senator Merkley to get this bipartisan bill through the Senate, and I urge my colleagues in the House to pass it and send it to the President’s desk.”

Holding perpetrators accountable

Among its findings, the bill cites the State Department’s 2023 International Religious Freedom Report, which stated that “Civil society organizations continued to express concern over reports that authorities forced members of religious organizations, in particular Falun Gong members and ethnic Uyghurs, to serve as organ donors.” The bill further finds that Beijing has failed to provide a credible, independently verifiable response to repeated international calls for transparency, and that the U.S. government has yet to issue its own formal assessment of the allegations.

Forced organ harvesting in China was recognized by the China Tribunal in 2019 as a crime against humanity, and has been denounced as a form of genocide by numerous academics and researchers. 

A key provision of the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act directs the Secretary of State—in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the intelligence community—to issue, within one year of enactment, a formal determination on whether the Chinese government engages, or formerly engaged, in systemic forced organ harvesting. If it does, the Secretary must also determine whether the practice constitutes an atrocity under the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act.

The same report must assess the sources of organs used in China’s transplant system, the number of transplants and voluntary donors, and whether China’s notoriously short organ wait times are possible given its donor pool. It must also list every U.S. grant over the past decade that has supported organ transplant research in China or in collaboration with Chinese entities.

Additionally, the bill mandates the imposition of strict sanctions. Within 180 days of enactment, the President must compile a list of foreign persons who knowingly and directly engaged in or facilitated forced organ harvesting in China, to be updated at least annually. Those listed will be subject to asset blocking, visa bans, and the immediate revocation of any existing U.S. visas.

The legislation defines forced organ harvesting as the removal of organs through coercion, abduction, deception, fraud, or abuse of power or a position of vulnerability, a definition not limited to any particular group. It also expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should investigate allegations of systemic forced organ harvesting in China, including against Falun Gong practitioners, and condemn coercive and non-transparent organ procurement practices.

A call for swift passage

If enacted, S.4009 would place the United States among a growing number of jurisdictions that have taken binding legal action against forced organ harvesting and transplant tourism. The Falun Dafa Information Center counts 14 such laws, enacted in Israel, Spain, Taiwan, Italy, Norway, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Canada, and six U.S. states. 

“The House has already twice voted unanimously to hold the perpetrators of this crime accountable. It is now crucial that the House act swiftly to pass S.4009 so this legislation can finally become law,” says Browde. “The urgency of the human rights crisis addressed by this bill cannot be overstated. Every day of delay costs innocent lives.”

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