Recently, just prior to the start of a summit in Pohnpei involving Marshall Islands President Jurelang Zedkaia, FSM President Manny Mori and Palau President Johnson Toribiong, all three received a letter from powerful U.S. Democratic Sen. Daniel K. Inouye outlining his plan to develop options to reduce “unanticipated and excessive costs” associated with islanders moving to U.S. areas under the Compacts.
Inouye said his aim is reduce growing tension between citizens of the Freely Associated States and residents of Hawaii.
At the summit in Pohnpei, the RMI, FSM and Palau presidents agreed to establish a task force of the three foreign ministers from each nation — John Silk from the Marshall Islands, Dr. Victor Yano of Palau and Loren Robert of FSM — to address the issue with the U.S.
“We’re addressing it,” Foreign Minister Silk said Wednesday last week. But he said the island leaders want to wait for the final report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office that is soon to report on the “Compact Impact” situation involving U.S. states, Guam and the Northern Marianas. That report is expected to be published in the next two months.
Inouye represents Hawaii, is the most senior member of the U.S. Senate having served since 1963, and is chairman of the Senate’s Appropriation Committee.
He told the three presidents in the July 25 letter that he wrote to them “as a friend and fellow Pacific Islander to express my concern with the growing social tension between FAS migrants and those U.S. citizens in Hawaii who feel they are getting less, or being forced to do without, because of the over-reliance of many migrants on local and federal social programs.”
Because U.S. federal reimbursement is limited to about $10 million a year while costs are much higher, “my state is forced to reduce the health, education, housing and other benefits it can provide to its own needy residents.”
Inouye said he has directed his staff to look at the option of expanding pre-screening for any criminal background issues to include health and other factors and writing regulations regarding the time and conditions of entry into the U.S. under the Compact.
“We will work toward addressing U.S. concerns while maintaining the Compact commitments,” said Foreign Minister Silk last week. “These problems can only be resolved by collaboration, and not through unilateral actions and threats.”
Sen. Gerald Zackios, who chairs the Marshall Islands parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said these issues should be discussed in a friendly and careful way “to find the right solutions acceptable to both sides.”
But, said Zackios, “we should be careful how this can be addressed, and we cannot allow the use of economic assistance provided (under the Compact) to fund the priority sectors to be used to address these concerns where it undermines our other efforts in achieving a measure of self-reliance or self-sustainability.”
“The issues raised in the (U.S.) letters are very important, and immediate discussions and action are needed to maintain and share in the spirit of the special and unique relationship between the RMI and U.S.,” he said.
