President Joe Biden is "ready to engage with Syria" on bringing home former Marine and freelance journalist Austin Tice, said his mother, Debra Tice.
"First of all, I'm just so glad that President Biden has said Austin's name publicly, I think that was the first time, in that statement," Tice told CNN on Thursday. "And I think that it's an indication from the president that the United States government is ready to engage with Syria to bring Austin home."
Tice was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus in August 2012 while reporting on the war in Syria.
Biden on Thursday said the U.S. government knows "with certainty" that Tice has been held by the Syrian government for 10 years.
"We have repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so that we can bring Austin home," Biden said in a statement.
"On the tenth anniversary of his abduction, I am calling on Syria to end this and help us bring him home," the president said, adding that the "Tice family deserves answers, and more importantly, they deserve to be swiftly reunited with Austin."
In a separate statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration will "continue to pursue all available avenues to bring Austin home and work tirelessly until we succeed in doing so."
Debra Tice said it was "great news" to see the Biden administration working to bring detained Americans home.
"I think it indicates that this administration understands that in order to bring people home, there's going to have to be engagement, negotiation and concession," Debra Tice said.
"I think they've demonstrated the president is willing to make a hard decision and get that done. And so I think it's really uplifting. Trevor is also a Marine, and I told him he did his brother a good one by paving a highway for Austin to come home."
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.