Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4119 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 4119

    To provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to the 
                Polisario Front, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             June 24, 2025

 Mr. Wilson of South Carolina (for himself and Mr. Panetta) 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 provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to the 
                Polisario Front, 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.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Polisario Front Terrorist 
Designation Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) The Polisario Front, founded in 1973, is a separatist 
        group operating primarily in Western Sahara and the Tindouf 
        region of Algeria, seeking independence for Western Sahara from 
        Moroccan sovereignty.
            (2) The Polisario Front has a documented history of 
        ideological and operational ties with Iran, a state sponsor of 
        terrorism, dating back at least to 1980, when Polisario 
        fighters publicly posed with portraits of Ayatollah Ruhollah 
        Khomeini in a bid to attract revolutionary credibility and 
        Iranian patronage.
            (3) According to reporting by Jeune Afrique, 3 Hezbollah 
        officers served as trainers in the Tindouf camps in 2018. One 
        of the named trainers, since killed in a November 2023 Israeli 
        airstrike in Syria, had previously been sanctioned by the 
        United States for orchestrating the 2007 Karbala raid in Iraq 
        that killed 5 American soldiers.
            (4) Iran's support has reportedly advanced from training to 
        the provision of lethal hardware. In a 2022 livestream, 
        Polisario ``Interior Minister'' Omar Mansour stated that his 
        fighters were training on ``assembling and operating armed 
        drones''. A year later, images disseminated via Polisario-
        controlled social media channels showed Iranian-type munitions, 
        as confirmed by open-source weapons researchers.
            (5) The Washington Post reported in April 2025 that Iran 
        has trained Polisario Front fighters and provided them with 
        unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), deepening concerns about the 
        group's growing capabilities and external sponsorship.
            (6) The Syrian wing of the PKK, a designated terrorist 
        organization, took part in the front's meeting called ``Sahrawi 
        Solidarity Summit'' in the Sahrawi camps on January 4-7 2025.

SEC. 3. REPORT.

    Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate 
Congressional committees a report on the Polisario Front to include the 
following:
            (1) A description of the Polisario Front's leadership, 
        military operations, and foreign sponsorship.
            (2) A description of the Polisario Front's relationships, 
        support, funding, and associations with Iran and Russia.
            (3) A description of the Polisario Front's relationships, 
        support, funding and associations with Foreign Terrorist 
        Organizations Hezbollah, the IRGC, and the PKK.
            (4) A description and analysis of whether the Polisario 
        Front has ever intentionally attacked civilian targets.

SEC. 4. DETERMINATIONS WITH RESPECT TO THE IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS 
              AGAINST THE POLISARIO FRONT.

    (a) Determinations by the Secretary of State.--Not later than 90 
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
State shall submit to the appropriate Congressional committees a 
determination, including a detailed justification, of whether the 
Polisario Front meets the criteria for--
            (1) designation as a foreign terrorist organization under 
        section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 
        1189); and
            (2) imposition of sanctions under section 1263 of the 
        Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (subtitle F of 
        title XII of Public Law 114-328; 22 U.S.C. 2656 note).
    (b) Determination by the Secretary of the Treasury.--Not later than 
90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
the Treasury shall submit to the appropriate Congressional committees a 
determination, including a detailed justification, of whether the 
Polisario Front meets the criteria for the imposition of sanctions 
under Executive Order 13224 (50 U.S.C. 1701).
    (c) Form.--The determinations required by subsections (a) and (b) 
shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified 
annex.

SEC. 5. WAIVER.

    The designations and sanctions described in section (4) of this 
bill may be waived by the President if it is determined that the 
Polisario Front is engaged in good faith negotiations to implement the 
autonomy plan for the Western Sahara put forward by the Kingdom of 
Morocco and submitted to the UN Security Council in 2007, which 
proposes granting the Sahrawi people a high degree of self-governance 
within a framework of Moroccan sovereignty.
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