Migration
Pursing the Micronesian Dream
Stagnant Economies Stimulate Out-Migration to America.
Walk into Kojo’s, a popular Japanese restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, and you’ll find that most of the waitresses, busboys and cooks are from Pohnpei. Check out the Tyson chicken packing plant in Springdale, Arkansas where you can’t move 10 feet down the assembly line without bumping into a Marshall Islander. And that’s not to mention Sea World in Florida, which resonates with workers from the Federated States of Micronesia. Ditto the Kyoto Restaurant chain on the southeastern seaboard, while nursing homes for the elderly throughout the States find scores of FSM and Marshalls citizens handling nine-to-five jobs.
The Compact of Free Association between the U.S. and the Marshalls, FSM and Palau, with its visa-free travel to America and its territories, has seen skyrocketing — though, by global terms, still modest — migration. Islanders have moved to Guam, Saipan and the U.S. in increasing numbers, particularly since the late 1990s when the economies in the FSM and Marshalls nose-dived. But the U.S. government says it intends to limit the free entry citizens from the Freely Associated States (FAS) currently enjoy, and has begun enforcing long-dormant immigration restrictions against FAS residents.
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Nobody knows how many FAS citizens are in the U.S. and its territories, but it is certainly in the tens of thousands. The out-migration has prompted increasingly vocal concerns from the governments in Guam, Saipan and Hawaii that say they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars providing health, education and social services to FAS citizens but have not been reimbursed by the U.S. government — as required — through the Compact.
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As the numbers have increased, both the local and federal governments have been rolling back services for which FAS citizens were once eligible. Even when federal law mandated FAS eligibility, U.S. government agencies haven’t been overly enthusiastic about reinstating federal services according to a law President Clinton approved last November 13, which extends federal program status to FAS citizens until new Compact economic provisions, now under renegotiation, come into effect. In response to the lack of action, in Hawaii in late February, Micro-nesians took to the streets with picket signs, protesting in front of federal agencies to restore their eligibility.
Some island leaders wonder why the U.S. government is so exercised about the issue. Pohnpei Senator, Peter Christian, the lead Compact negotiator for the Federated States of Micronesia, says in actuality, the majority of FAS islanders are working and paying taxes or going to school. Leaders in the Marshalls wonder why the U.S. is focusing so much attention on the FAS — which are loyal U.S. allies — when legal FAS migration to the U.S. in no way compares to the waves of other third country nationals attempting to get into the U.S.
FSM consul general on Guam Samson Pretrick acknowledges that some FAS citizens come to Guam, learn that they’re eligible for food stamps, welfare, and housing assistance and get on the dole. "Some don’t understand that the purpose of the welfare program is to help them get by when they’re having difficulties," Pretrick said. "Some think it’s a way of life." But, he says, one "rarely sees a story about the positive impact (of FAS citizens)."
Both the Marshalls and FSM have so far resisted U.S. overtures to put immigration provisions — that don’t expire like the economic provisions — on the negotiating table. But that hasn’t stopped the U.S. from putting FAS governments on notice of its intent to crack down on their citizens. The Immigration and Naturalization Service last September approved "habitual residence" regulations that authorize INS to deport non-citizens if they don’t have a job after living in the U.S. or its territories for 14 months. Other long-ignored immigration restrictions are being enforced by INS. Since December, INS has begun denying entry to Marshall Islanders convicted of felony offenses in the Marshalls.
The number of FAS citizens streaming to America is likely to increase the next two years particularly if islanders feel they need to get to the U.S. before more stringent regulations are implemented. But even so, just like the tiny islands they come from, the numbers represent just a drop in a huge ocean.
Photo: Floyd K. Takeuchi
