Families who lost loved ones to Iranian-backed terrorism are making a direct appeal to President Trump and Congress: do not hand Tehran hundreds of billions in frozen assets until American victims get paid first.
The push comes as the clock ticks on a June 17 Memorandum of Understanding between the United States and Iran that could return massive sums to the Islamic Republic within roughly 30 days. For the families of Americans killed and maimed by Iranian-sponsored attacks, including survivors of the September 11 attacks, the prospect of Tehran walking away with a windfall while a federal compensation fund sits empty is not just frustrating. It is a betrayal.
Congress created the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund in 2015 to compensate Americans who hold court judgments against foreign governments for terrorism. The fund has distributed approximately $10 billion to eligible claimants over the years, Just The News reported. But the money is gone. The fund is now completely depleted, leaving families with valid federal judgments and no mechanism to collect.
Angela Mistrulli, whose father died on 9/11, traveled to Capitol Hill to make the case in person. She told lawmakers plainly what depletion means for people like her:
"Victims who were promised support have faced years with nothing at all. This is not theoretical. It is happening today, and it is harming families who have already suffered."
Mistrulli is not alone. Victims and their relatives gathered on the Hill to press Congress and the White House to refill the fund before any sanctions relief reaches Iran. Their argument is straightforward: American courts awarded these judgments. The federal government created a fund to honor them. The government should not release the very assets that could satisfy those judgments without first making victims whole.
The June 17 MOU between Washington and Tehran opens the door to Iran receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets and broad sanctions relief, CBS News reported. Negotiators have roughly 30 days remaining to finalize terms. That timeline has injected urgency into the families' campaign. Once assets are unfrozen and transferred, recovering them becomes exponentially harder, if not impossible.
The families are not asking the administration to abandon diplomacy. They are asking that restitution be built into the deal itself, treated as a condition rather than an afterthought. In their view, the frozen assets represent the single most realistic pool of money available to satisfy outstanding terrorism judgments. Letting that pool drain to Tehran without carving out victim payments first would extinguish their claims for good.
The dynamic echoes a pattern familiar to readers who follow cases where families of violent crime victims step forward to demand accountability from institutions that have moved on. The difference here is scale: billions of dollars and a geopolitical negotiation that could reshape the Middle East.
A bipartisan group of New York representatives sent a letter on July 1 drawing a clear line. Reps. Laura Gillen, Nicole Malliotakis, and Mike Lawler wrote jointly:
"No agreement, interim or long-term, should release, transfer, unfreeze, or return Iranian assets, or lift or relieve sanctions, before the outstanding terrorism judgments owed to American victims are resolved."
The letter is notable for crossing party lines. Gillen is a Democrat; Malliotakis and Lawler are Republicans. That bipartisan alignment suggests the families' position carries political weight that neither party wants to ignore heading into the next election cycle. All three represent New York districts where the memory of September 11 remains personal, not abstract.
The congressional letter does not call for killing the Iran deal outright. It demands sequencing: victims first, then asset release. That framing gives the administration room to negotiate while still honoring court judgments that American families spent years obtaining.
Collecting terrorism judgments from sovereign nations has always been an uphill fight. Courts can enter enormous awards against state sponsors of terror, but enforcement depends on finding assets within reach of U.S. law. Iran does not voluntarily pay American court judgments. The frozen assets held under U.S. sanctions represent the most accessible funds, and the families know it.
When Congress established the compensation fund in 2015, it was meant to bridge that gap. The fund drew from penalties, forfeitures, and other government-collected sums tied to sanctions violations. For a time, it worked. Families received partial payments on their judgments. Then the fund ran out, and the pipeline stopped.
Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether any portion of the current Iran deal framework includes a mechanism for victim compensation. The families say they have seen no evidence that restitution is on the negotiating table. That silence is what drove them to Washington.
Cases involving victims of state-sponsored terrorism and extremist violence consistently reveal the same tension: governments prioritize strategic objectives while victims wait for the justice they were promised. The families pressing Congress this month are trying to make sure that pattern does not repeat itself with the largest asset release in the history of U.S.-Iran relations.
The judgments these families hold are not symbolic. They are final orders from federal courts, entered after trials or default proceedings in which judges found Iran liable for specific acts of terrorism. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, victims of state-sponsored terrorism can sue foreign governments in U.S. courts. Winning those cases is difficult. Collecting is even harder.
The fund was supposed to solve the collection problem. Without it, families are left holding paper judgments worth millions, sometimes hundreds of millions, with no practical way to enforce them. If the frozen assets go back to Tehran, the last realistic enforcement tool disappears.
Legal advocates for the families argue that conditioning sanctions relief on victim restitution is not only morally sound but legally consistent. The assets were frozen in part because of Iran's sponsorship of terrorism. Using a portion to satisfy terrorism judgments before releasing the rest would align the diplomatic outcome with the legal rationale for the freeze in the first place.
The principle is not unlike the logic courts apply in terrorism and human trafficking prosecutions, where restitution to victims is treated as a priority, not an optional add-on. The families want the same principle applied at the negotiating table.
With roughly a month left on the MOU timeline, the families face a narrow window. Congressional letters and Capitol Hill visits generate attention, but the deal's terms will ultimately be shaped by the White House and the State Department. The families need the administration to treat victim compensation as a dealbreaker, not a talking point.
President Trump has not publicly addressed whether restitution will be a condition of any final agreement. The families are betting that his administration, which has positioned itself as tough on Iran and supportive of American victims, will not want to be seen handing Tehran a windfall while terror survivors go unpaid.
The political math favors the families. Opposing victim compensation in favor of faster asset release to Iran is a position no elected official wants to defend publicly. But diplomacy operates on its own logic, and deals of this magnitude involve tradeoffs that rarely surface until the ink is dry.
Victims of fraud and violence in other contexts, including high-profile fugitive cases tracked by the FBI, often discover that the system moves slowly even when the facts are clear. The families of Iranian terror victims have been waiting far longer than most, and the fund that was supposed to deliver has already failed them once.
The families plan to continue pressing their case on Capitol Hill and in public. Their message is simple: the United States should not reward a state sponsor of terrorism with hundreds of billions in assets while American victims of that same terrorism hold empty judgments. The bipartisan letter from New York's delegation gives them a legislative foothold, but converting that into binding deal conditions will require sustained pressure.
Investigators and policymakers will need to determine whether the current MOU framework can accommodate a restitution carve-out without collapsing the broader negotiation. The families believe it can. They argue that Iran wants these assets badly enough to accept conditions, and that the United States holds the leverage to demand them.
No public results have been released about any internal administration deliberations on the restitution question. The families are asking for transparency on that front as well: tell us where victim compensation stands in the deal, and tell us now, before the 30 days expire.
A government that freezes foreign assets because of terrorism and then returns them without paying its own terrorism victims has its priorities exactly backward. The families heading to Capitol Hill this month are making sure no one in Washington can pretend they did not hear that message.
