President Donald Trump said that the U.S. would continue to search for Austin Tice, an American journalist who disappeared in Syria in 2012.
Tice, who previously served as a captain in the Marine Corps and was a student at Georgetown University Law Center, started working as an independent journalist for McClatchy, The Washington Post and other outlets in Syria in May 2012 before jihadist militants seized him near Damascus.
Trump said that although there has been ‘virtually no sign’ of Tice, his administration would continue to try to secure Tice’s release.
‘Until we find out something definitive, one way or the other, we’ll never stop looking,’ Trump told reporters Monday. ‘But we have been, and the response – it’s just a lot of dead ends. It’s been done for a long time. The problem is, there’s never been a sighting.’
Trump’s comments come after Tice’s mother, Debra, told reporters at the National Press Club in December that they’d received information suggesting that her son was still alive.
‘We have from a significant source that has been vetted all over our government: Austin Tice is alive,’ his mother Debra Tice said Dec. 6. She later met with former President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, at the White House to discuss her son’s wrongful detainment.
Meanwhile, rebels also overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime in December, prompting the FBI to issue a statement reiterating its push from April 2018 for more information that could lead to Tice’s release.
‘Given recent events in Syria, the FBI is renewing our call for information that could lead to the safe location, recovery, and return of Austin Bennett Tice, who was detained in Damascus in August 2012,’ the FBI said in a statement in December.
‘The FBI and our government partners remain committed to bringing Austin home to his family, and we are still offering a reward of up to $1 million for information that leads to Austin’s safe return,’ the FBI said.
Both Trump’s first administration and Biden’s administration have launched efforts to advance the release of Tice. Biden urged the Syrian government to release Tice in 2020, and said the U.S. knew ‘with certainty’ that the Syrian regime was holding him hostage. Syria has publicly denied it has detained Tice.
There were 46 American nationals known to be held captive in 16 different countries in 2024, according to the nonprofit Foley Foundation, which advocates for U.S. hostages and was named after James Foley, a U.S. journalist kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012 and killed by ISIS in 2014. That number is now likely closer to the low 30s after the recent releases of hostages in January and February through efforts by the Trump administration.
Fox News’ Michael Dorgan and Stephany Price contributed to this report.