On June 25, 2024, the US House of Representatives passed the American Divided Families National Registry Act to assist Korean Americans in reconnecting with family members they left behind during the Korean War. Passed on the 74th anniversary of the Korean War, this Bill aims to lay the groundwork for future separated family reunion opportunities should a more cooperative US-DPRK geopolitical climate arise.
The US House of Representatives passed the American Divided Families National Registry Act on June 25, 2024, the 74th anniversary of the Korean War. Co-sponsored by Republican Representative Michelle Steel and Democratic Representative Jennifer Wexton, this bipartisan legislation is the most significant step taken by Congress towards reuniting thousands of Korean Americans with their relatives in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), from whom they have been separated since the outset of the Korean War. The Bill also represents an important diplomatic step towards cooperation and improved relations between the United States and North Korea (the DPRK).
The agenda set out by the National Registry Act is two-fold. Most directly, the Bill calls for the establishment of a data repository of information about living and deceased Korean Americans and their relatives in North Korea. Managed and directed by the Department of State, the repository would serve as a key resource for facilitating family reconnection, either digitally or in-person, should relations between the United States and the DPRK ever sufficiently improve to enable such exchange.
Beyond its data collection mandate, the legislation also demands that the US Secretary of State take all “such actions as may be necessary to ensure any direct dialogue between the United States and North Korea includes progress towards holding future reunions for Korean American families and their family members in North Korea”. In this way, the National Registry Act seeks to not only create the infrastructure necessary to effectively reconnect separated families in the event of US-DPRK reconciliation, but also to provide Korean Americans with assurance that the US government will include and prioritize family reunification in its dialogue with the North Korean government.
Family Separation as an Enduring Legacy of the Korean War
Termed as the “Forgotten War” in the United States, few Americans comprehend the sheer number of American lives lost in the Korean War. Even fewer are aware of the conflict’s detrimental impact on Korean communities. Alongside the 37,000 Americans and well over 1 million Korean soldiers who perished in the fighting, countless Korean families were torn apart during the Korean War’s period of active conflict between 1950 and 1953. Roughly 2 million children were orphaned or separated from their families and at least 200,000 were sent abroad for adoption, many of whom went to America. Inter-Korean family divisions became near permanent in July 1953, when the conflict was temporarily halted not by a treaty but by an armistice that divided Korea along the 38th parallel and left thousands of Koreans cut off from their relatives.
While the Korean War is now over 74 years old, both the military border created by the 1953 armistice and the significant restrictions imposed on American-North Korean and South Korean-North Korean exchange remain intact. The US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) have on occasion engaged in meaningful dialogue with the DPRK and enjoyed relatively stable relations between 1994 and 2008. However, relations have soured in recent decades as the DPRK has become increasingly assertive and aggressive in its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Neither Washington nor Seoul has ever established formal diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and to this day the Korean Peninsula technically remains in a state of war. Pre-approved American tourists could once visit the North and approximately 800 did so each year up until 2017, when the death of American student Otto Warmbier prompted President Donald Trump to ban Americans from travelling to the DPRK. The Biden administration upheld this travel ban in 2023 and it remains a major disruptor of contemporary American-North Korean exchange.
The Korean family separation issue has grown increasingly urgent in recent years as greater numbers of separated family members draw near the end of their lives. As of 2021, more than 68% of the 133,675 South Koreans who applied for inter-Korean family reunions since 1988 had already passed away, and over 85% of the remaining 42,000 people were over the age of 70. This means that thousands of South Koreans die every year without ever having the chance to meet their families, a fate that many Korean Americans and North Koreans have likely shared.
Past Efforts and a New Hope for Korean Americans
While most Koreans remain totally separated from their relatives, bilateral reunification and reconnection efforts have had some success, at least for those on the peninsula. Since 1985, the ROK and DPRK have jointly sponsored 21 family reunions, which have collectively reunited an estimated 44,000 North and South Korean families.
Korean Americans have not been so lucky. Inter-Korean reunions have long excluded the American segment of divided families, and the US and North Korean governments have never come close to pursuing similar initiatives. The exclusion of Korean Americans from reunification efforts in part stems from the difficulty of US-DPRK relations, but it is also due to a lack of investment and interest by the US government. While American grassroots activists have fought diligently to bring public attention to the issue, they have gained little traction without access to channels of engagement or true government assistance. Consequently, Korean Americans have had little respite from their lifetime of separation from relatives trapped in North Korea.
Passed over 27,000 days after the end of the Korean War, the American Divided Families National Registry Act could make a vital difference in the push for Korean American family reunification. The creation of a data repository represents a practical and concrete first step towards building the infrastructure necessary for future reunion initiatives. The stipulation that all future US-DPRK dialogue must “include progress towards holding future reunions” gives teeth to the scattered, informal efforts of grassroots divided family activists by providing a guarantee of prolonged government involvement in reunion initiatives. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Bill holds symbolic value for the thousands of Korean Americans who have not seen or spoken with their North Korean relatives for most of their lives. In the words of Paul Lee, President of Divided Families USA, “if this bill were to become law, it would not only give [Korean Americans] hope for reconnection with their relatives in North Korea, but also a sense of safety and reassurance that they would be supported by the US government.”
The First Step on a Long and Difficult Journey
Admittedly, the National Registry Act does not solve the Korean family separation issue that has existed for 74 long years. Korean Americans remain cut off from their families in North Korea and the dismal state of US-DPRK and ROK-DPRK relations undercuts the impact of unilateral American reunion initiatives.
Even so, the American Divided Families National Registry Act is not without significance. The act puts in place invaluable infrastructure for facilitating reunions in the next cycle of American-North Korean détente. Moreover, in an era where the US and DPRK are increasingly at odds with one another, the legislation demonstrates that avenues for positive US-DPRK diplomatic engagement still exist and that American policy makers remain open to exploring them.
Jack Borrow is a participant in the Summer 2024 Young Professionals Program at the East West Center in Washington. He is a recent graduate of Boston College, where he obtained a B.A. in Political Science and Asian Studies.