Report:
Mend broken promises
to Micronesians

The nonprofit Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice on Dec. 14 issued a policy brief, Broken Promises, Shattered Lives – The Case for Justice for Micronesians in Hawaii. The report documents the ongoing discrimination in Hawaii against migrants from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau. It also explores their health problems – some a result of the 67 open-air atomic and hydrogen bombs the U.S. tested in Micronesia – and promises to the Micronesians the U.S. has yet to fulfill.

The study examines a little-known aspect of U.S. involvement in the Pacific – fulfilling its promises under the Compacts of Free Association, a series of treaties between the U.S. and Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau. Under these treaties, the U.S. has control of foreign affairs, airspace and over one million square miles of waters in the Pacific belonging to the COFA nations. In return, the U.S. is required to aid the economic, political and social development of the COFA nations and provide for their national security.

Click here for a copy of the report.

Islanders from COFA countries may migrate to the U.S. and work here, but only under peculiar terms. They pay state and federal taxes, but they are excluded from ever receiving federal benefits such as Medicaid, although Hawaii receives money to administer alternative health plans. In fact, aliens from other countries can become eligible for Medicaid after five years of residence in Hawaii, while COFA migrants cannot – ever.  

In 2009, when Hawaii created Basic Health Hawaii, a new health program for Micronesian migrants that cut health benefits drastically, Hawaii Appleseed, formerly known as Lawyers for Equal Justice, responded. It sought and won a federal court injunction in 2010 preventing implementation of the BHH program and preserved critical health services for 8,000 Micronesians.

Hawaii Appleseed saved lives. For example, Innocenta Sounds’ father, the former lieutenant general of Chuuk, was given just one week's notice that his dialysis was to be cut off. Winning an injunction against the new plan saved his life and those of 110 other dialysis patients represented by Hawaii Appleseed.

The state has appealed the injunction, but Hawaii Appleseed continues to work to ensure that the U.S. lives up to its promise to promote the economic, political and social development of Micronesia and to remove the language, cultural and social barriers that prevent the assimilation of these recent immigrants to Hawaii.