WASHINGTON, D.C. — Anna Corbett’s appearance before lawmakers Tuesday marked her 11th trip to Washington on behalf of her husband Ryan, who has been wrongfully detained in Afghanistan more than 600 days.

She was part of a panel of families desperate for information about loved ones also held by the regimes in Russia, China, Iran and Syria.

“I'm exhausted,” she told lawmakers. “I'm caring for three children who are still processing the trauma of having been without Ryan when we need him the most. They've only spoken to him five times in over 20 months for mere minutes.”

Corbett told lawmakers that after their family moved out of Afghanistan when the U.S.-backed government in Kabul fell, her husband returned in August of 2022 to check on his business there.

He was taken into custody and has endured “brutal treatment” in a basement cell, she said.

Corbett, his wife and three children had been living in upstate New York, but they have family in Louisville, where Rep. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, spoke about Corbett’s case in February.  

McGarvey and other Kentucky lawmakers have signed on to bipartisan resolutions calling for Corbett’s immediate release, but his wife says information from the White House has slowed to a trickle.

“Steps need to be taken and we want communication,” said Corbett. “As a family, we deserve that.”

“Every channel of the U.S. government should be working to bring these Americans home and disincentivize the wrongful detention of Americans in the future by state actors or non-state actors,” said Republican Rep. French Hill of Arkansas.

Spectrum News has reached out to the White House for an update.

According to a State Department spokesperson, U.S. officials in meetings with Taliban representatives have continuously pressed for the immediate and unconditional release of Americans detained in Afghanistan.