Trump deportations roil Pacific waters

12:11 pm on 6 February 2025
US President Donald Trump speaks to journalists in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on January 30, 2025.

Trump administration's aggressive action to deport illegal aliens is reverberating around the Pacific, writes Giff Johnson. Photo: AFP

Analysis - The Trump administration's aggressive action to deport illegal aliens is reverberating around the Pacific, with commentators from Papua New Guinea to Samoa warning that the arrival of dozens, possibly hundreds, of islanders deported from the United States is likely to result in negative consequences for these small islands.

Deportations of Marshall Islanders and Micronesians are also expected to spike from the current US immigration enforcement actions launched since President Trump's inauguration on January 20.

"Quite soon…a United States military aircraft will be landing at Tonga's Fua'amotu Airport to offload dozens of Tongan citizens rounded up for being in the US without the proper documentation," wrote New Zealand journalist Michael Field last week in a post in The Pacific Newsroom Facebook group.

"Like other Pacific states including Fiji and Sāmoa, an unsettling number of them will have gang and criminal connections. In the case of Tonga, the 2006 destruction of Nuku'alofa, shows the consequences."

The Post-Courier newspaper in Papua New Guinea, which reports just five PNG citizens on a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation list, published a page one story with a photo of Trump pointing next to the headline, "Get Out."

Over 150 Tongans could be deported shortly and over 50 Samoans.

But America's primary allies in the North Pacific are also feeling the heat of deportations returning islanders steeped in gang, drug and violence activity with little connection to the small, close knit communities in their homelands.

The Marshall Islands may be positioned squarely between Samoa and Tonga when it comes to the number of Marshallese facing deportation this year due to Trump's mandate to ICE to get undocumented aliens - which could possibly include Marshallese with expired passports, even though they are legally present in the US - and those with criminal records, no matter how many years in the past.

In 2024, an all-time record number of Marshallese were deported from America during the Biden administration - more than double the 2023 number. ICE reports that 67 Marshallese were deported during the Biden administration in fiscal year 2024, breaking all previous annual records.

This compares to pre-Covid 2019 when 32 were deported and 2023 when 28 were deported. Since 2019, 143 Marshallese have been deported and the number would be significantly higher except for the Covid border closure in 2020-2022 that resulted in no deportations to RMI in 2021 and 2022.

The Federated States of Micronesia saw 91 of its citizens deported last year, a number consistent with pre-Covid level deportations to the FSM.

Despite the record-breaking number of Marshallese deportations last year, the Marshall Islands Cabinet has not yet endorsed a standard operating procedure to guide government responses to the increasing tide of Marshallese being deported.

The Cabinet in January 2024 established a Deportation Task Force to address the increasing concerns of the community over violence and crime involving men deported from the US, including a murder, a knife assault and drug distribution.

Task force chair, MP Marie Davis Milne, said this week that task force completed the draft standard operating procedure plan for the Cabinet review and approval "months ago."

With the Trump administration push for deportations, including ICE-led door-to-door searches over recent weeks in Northwest Arkansas in neighborhoods where Marshallese live, the 2024 record number could be left in the dust by 2025 deportations. Northwest Arkansas hosts the largest community of Marshallese in the US, with an estimated 15,000 islanders in the Springdale area.

The combination of ICE and Springdale law enforcement officers operations in Arkansas has put Marshallese on edge, with community groups springing into action the past three weeks to provide advice about how to respond to ICE officers on your doorstep.

It also led Marshallese community advocate Albious Latior to caution Marshallese about moving to the Springdale area. "We used to recommend Northwest Arkansas as one of the safest places to raise a family," he said in a social media post. "However, nowadays, we advise those with a past criminal record not to move to NWA due to these risks."

Amid Trump's immigration crackdown across the country, Hawaii law enforcement teams have been hitting locations across Oahu daily, targeting those with criminal records, reported Hawaii News Now late last week.

Other Pacific nations such as Tonga, the Federated States of Micronesia, and New Zealand are also significantly represented, with 151 Tongans, 72 Micronesians, and 166 New Zealanders facing final orders of removal from the US, reported the Samoa Observer. Other countries like Australia (261 individuals), Palau (eight), and the Solomon Islands (three) also have citizens who may be impacted by the deportation push.

"While some US officials emphasize the need for stringent immigration control to protect national security and uphold the rule of law, others warn that the repercussions of mass deportations could be devastating for those affected and for US-Pacific Island relations," the Samoa newspaper said.

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Kalani Kaneko speaking during a Nitijela (parliament) session last year. Photo: Hilary Hosia.

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Kalani Kaneko speaking during a Nitijela (parliament) session last year. Photo: Hilary Hosia

Marshall Islands Foreign Minister Kalani Kaneko last weekend led a Zoom call for Marshallese living in America that was attended by over 400 people. This week, Kaneko said that he and RMI ambassadors are reaching out to leaders in the new Trump administration to create greater awareness about Marshallese immigration status.

Marshall Islanders and citizens of Micronesia and Palau have visa-free entry privileges under the Compact of Free Association treaties with Washington. One issue facing many long-term US resident Marshallese is that they allowed their Marshall Islands passports to expire and could be considered "undocumented" aliens, depending on the vagaries of ICE enforcement actions.

The Marshall Islands Washington Embassy also issued a letter addressed to "ICE," with a one-paragraph explanation of Marshallese legal status in the US under US law.

"In addition to the letter addressed to ICE, my office will keep sending congratulatory letters to the confirmed members of Trump's Cabinet," said Kaneko. "The purpose of these letters is to highlight our Compact agreement, acknowledge our sacrifices, and request meetings either in person or virtually."

A similar letter is to be sent to the new Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem "with the same objective," he said.

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