Today's Article

"Families were hugging, crying. People, at some points, hadn't seen each other in eight years." 

U.S. special 2envoy for 3hostage affairs, Roger Carstens 4escorted the returning Americans home. 

"I was really struck by their 5strength, their 6resilience, their hopefulness and their love for their country." 

On Capitol Hill, many 7GOP law makers are 8criticizing the 9release of $6 billion in 10frozen Iranian funds and the return of five Iranian prisoners from U. S. Custody. 

"Unfortunately, the deal that 11secured their release may very well be the latest example of President Biden 12rewarding and 13incentivizingTehran's bad behavior." 

"This is a good deal. We essentially took Iranian money from a 14restricted account in South Korea and put it in a much more restricted account in banks and Qatar where it's going to be monitored by the 15Department of Treasury and it's only going to be used to buy 16humanitarianitems." 

For the families, the focus is now on healing and moving forward. 

"For the whole family, it's the greatest news we could have expected." 

The uncle of one of the freedom Americans, Siamak Namazi, says it was his nephew who kept the family spirits high during Namazi's 17captivity.

"He was so resilient instead of us trying to cheer him up, he was cheering us up. He wanted to show that, 'look, don't worry. I'm good. I'm doing good.'" 

All five are now truly doing good at home.