Austin Tice's mother pushes Biden administration to do more to free him from Syria

The journalist and former marine has been held in Syria since 2012

Debra Tice, mother of journalist Austin Tice who disappeared while reporting in Syria in 2012, at the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday. Reuters

It has been a year since US President Joe Biden vowed to Debra Tice that he would work "relentlessly" to secure the release of her son Austin Tice from Syria.

But the mother of seven is still waiting to wrap her arms around her eldest son.

Instead of welcoming her freelance journalist son home, Ms Tice has made another trip to Washington to implore the US government to do more to secure his release.

“You can see how effective all this effort has been,” she said. “The evidence should be here and I should be at home sorting laundry.”

Mr Tice, 41, disappeared while reporting in Syria more than a decade ago. He was kidnapped at a checkpoint in Deraya, a suburb of Damascus, on August 13, 2012, two days after his 31st birthday.

He is one of two Americans believed to be held in Syria. The other is Majd Kamalmaz, a psychologist from Virginia, who disappeared at a government checkpoint in 2017 while visiting family.

In September 2012, a month after he vanished, a 47-second video was released showing Mr Tice blindfolded and surrounded by armed men. He could be heard saying “Jesus” and reciting a prayer in Arabic.

He has not been heard from since and his whereabouts remain a mystery.

In August 2022, the US said it knew with “certainty” that the journalist, who had been covering the Syrian civil war, was being held by the Syrian government.

Damascus has denied holding Mr Tice, a former Marine Corps captain from Houston, Texas.

Ms Tice said she was confident her son was alive but would not speculate where exactly in Syria he was being held.

“We know that he is fully capable of walking free,” she said at the National Press Club in Washington.

Under Mr Biden, the US, which remains strongly against normalising relations with the Syrian government of President Bashar Al Assad, has engaged “directly” with Damascus.

But Ms Tice believes within the administration there is an “unwillingness” to hear what the Syrian government wants and to work out a deal.

“Getting Austin home does not have to change our foreign policy,” she said.

“We can engage with Syria, we can have discussions, we can negotiate and we can bring Austin home without changing our foreign policy.”

Mr Biden addressed Ms Tice directly at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday.

"She knows from our several conversations — the conversations with me and my senior staff — we are not giving up," he said.

"As a consequence of Austin showing the world the cost of war, he’s been detained in Syria for nearly 11 years.

"It’s simply wrong. It’s outrageous. And we are not ceasing our effort to get him, find him and bring him home."

Mr Biden also called for the release of The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held by Russia on what the US says are bogus espionage charges, and Americans being "unjustly" held in Iran, Venezuela, China and elsewhere.

"We see them. They are not forgotten," he said. "I promise you I am working like hell to get them home."