On June 10, the Republic of the Marshall Islands Office of National Security issued a news statement announcing the deportation of 18 Marshallese nationals who had been lawfully living in Arkansas, California, Washington, and Hawaii.
Their removal marks the Trump administration’s first significant Marshallese deportation. The 18 Marshallese nationals were escorted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers when they landed on Majuro Atoll on a U.S. C-130 military aircraft.
According to the press announcement, which included no other information, the 18 individuals who were sent back to the Marshall Islands were found guilty of crimes ranging from minor to major. U.S. Customs and Immigration has not responded to a Freedom of Information request for the identities, states of origin, and a comprehensive list of convictions for the 18 individuals.
According to Republic of the Marshall Islands deportation documents obtained for this study, 43 more Marshallese, aged 20 to 46, who were convicted of misdemeanor or felony offenses were also deported from the United States between late January and late May of this year. The state with the biggest number of native Marshallese outside of the Marshall Islands, Arkansas, was home to ten of those forty-three.
The Marshall Island Halfway House initiative, a new nonprofit organization for criminal deportees in Majuro, is founded and run by Riem Simon. Additionally, he is a member of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Deportation Task Force, which was constituted early last year with his assistance.
Speaking of islanders who do not keep up-to-date travel documents, Simon stated in an email interview that recent enforcement trends indicate that Marshallese citizens with past criminal records—even minor ones—are increasingly being targeted for removal, particularly if those infractions intersect with immigration status concerns.
Visas are not required for Marshallese nationals to enter the United States, except for those with criminal histories. According to a bilateral Pact of Free Association (COFA) from 1986, they are specifically categorized as non-immigrant citizens of Freely Associated States (FAS). A strategic intercontinental ballistic missile facility in the Republic of the Marshall Islands’ Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific is maintained by the U.S. military in return.
According to the agreement, Marshallese nationals residing in the United States must abide by the law, keep valid passports, and keep I-94 travel records, which provide official documentation of foreign nationals’ arrivals and departures. According to Simon, this is changing. Previously, islanders with expired travel credentials suffered few legal repercussions, but those with serious convictions faced expulsion.
Immigration violations including not keeping current travel documents have not historically been grounds for removal, according to current knowledge and judicial history.
Up to 11 million unauthorized and authorized immigrants and migrants were the focus of the largest mass deportation of illegal aliens in U.S. history, which President Donald Trump ordered after taking office in January of last year.
ICE officials were vigorously seeking Marshallese neighborhoods in Northwest Arkansas for possible deportees, according to Marshallese social media postings that circulated within weeks.
The Springdale-based Consulate of the Republic of the Marshall Islands began alerting islanders to amend their travel records in late January. They were also instructed to use their right to object to home searches if they were approached by ICE authorities, unless they produced legitimate, judge-signed warrants. Islanders were also instructed to assert their right to counsel and to refuse to sign any documents if they were held. To help islanders with legal issues, the Marshallese Consulate still hosts a pro bono lawyer from the Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition in addition to other volunteers.
Up to 15,000 Marshallese citizens, primarily in Washington, Benton, and Carroll Counties, are officially residents of Arkansas. RMI deportation data shows that 47 Marshall Islanders were deported from the state between 2002 and 2024. Over the course of those 22 years, 341 Marshallese were expelled from the United States. Most of them were from Louisiana, Hawaii, California, and Arkansas. Thirty islanders were deported in 2024, after 36 were removed nationwide in 2023. Between late January and mid-June of this year, 43 Marshallese were deported under the Trump administration, marking a sharp increase.
The brief stated that theft or property-related crimes were the most common causes for removal, followed by serious crimes such as rape, domestic violence, physical and sexual assault, and child abuse.
Furthermore, 21 Marshallese residents of Arkansas were deported in 2018 for first-time offenses involving nonattendance at court.
Marshallese deportees who were escorted by U.S. marshals were previously flown back to the Republic of the Marshall Islands and left on their own. Upon arrival, returning Marshallese are now subject to immigration and medical checks under the Marshall Islands Deportation Task Force. Following a briefing by representatives of the Majuro Atoll local administration and Marshall Islands Police Department, returnees are either returned to their sponsors, relatives, or Marshall Island Halfway House employees.
According to Simon, deportees who have been convicted of serious crimes and those who have resided in the US for a long time face major obstacles when they return to the Marshall Islands.
These include discrimination and social exclusion, obstacles to work, housing and basic needs, and the dissolution of familial ties.
According to Simon, he started his charity halfway house initiative to offer transitional accommodation, counseling, skills-building programs, and necessary resources to help distressed returns achieve stability and independence. He asserted that in order to prevent recidivism among returns, an accountability mechanism is essential.
During their visit to Northwest Arkansas earlier this year, government officials from the Republic of the Marshall Islands and leaders of the Marshallese community in Arkansas chose not to publicly address the increased deportations of Marshallese in the United States.
According to Melanie Carbine, there are explanations for that. She is the editor of Chikin Me e e, a digital daily established in the United States that is trilingual in Marshallese and Chuukese. For the benefit of readers, she has been keeping a careful eye on the prevalence of Marshallese and Micronesian detentions and deportations.
According to Carbine’s email, islanders respect their leaders and benefactors because of a manit, Marshallese custom. They are unwilling to criticize the United States.
However, Marshallese people are subtly showing betrayal, Carbine stated.
According to islanders, the US poisoned their people and their islands, she stated. Over a horrifying ten-year period, the United States tested 67 atmospheric thermonuclear and atomic weapons on the Marshall Islands, which were then a U.S. Trust Territory, as a testing ground during the Cold War.
“Most Marshallese expect more compensatory treatment from the U.S. because they accept the presence of a U.S. military weapons base on their remote Pacific homeland,” Carbine said.
She added that the fact that local Hispanic households are being targeted by ICE enforcement is another reason why Islanders are concerned.
According to Carbine, tens of thousands of Marshallese nationals and Marshallese Americans have established new lives in the United States, which islanders have long viewed as a utopia. Islanders can find work, social services, public education, reasonably priced food, cozy housing, and healthcare here.
However, she claimed that many islanders now feel insecure and unwanted.
Marshallese traditionally don t talk about family or relatives caught up in either the criminal system or deportation proceedings, so as not to bring shame on families, Carbine said. Islanders also remind her that any kind of family separation is a penalty worse than going to jail.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently got$45 billionin new funding to expand detention prison capacity this year and beef up enforcement. Trump also issued a memo reallocating the U.S. National Guard, traditionally tasked with protecting the public from harm, to round up immigrants. Thousands of other federal agents also being reassigned to immigration enforcement to fulfill Trump s deportation quota.
Carbineconfirmedthat a Marshall Islands citizen, a repeat criminal offender, is currently being detained with no due process in a U.S. maximum security detention facility at Guant namo Bay Naval Base in southeast Cuba, instead of serving time in Arkansas, his home. The historic prison camp originally housed international terrorism suspects, including those involved in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centers. Nearly 800 prisoners from 48 countries were once confined on site. As few as 15 remain. Trump is reportedly holding hundreds of ICE detainees inside the derelict prison facility, which hesaidwill accommodate 30,000.
The fact that a Marshallese citizen is now imprisoned in Guantanamo has struck a nerve, Carbine said. A former U.S. RMI Consul General, who does not want to be identified, told me it s a serious breach of the compact as well as international law.
Carbine said Marshallese people in the United States feel betrayed. They ve lost faith in the United States government, she said. Marshallese agree that breaking their sovereigncontractwith the U.S. means nothing at all to President Donald Trump.
TheEmbassy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands to the United States, headquartered in Washington, D.C., issued a public advisory in late July to all Marshallese citizens in the U.S. clarifying their legal status and rights under the Compact of Free Association.
Embassy staff alsowarnedall Marshallese citizens 14 years and older traveling to or residing in the U.S. to comply with the U.S. Alien Registration Act of 1940. The law requires all non-citizens living in U.S. for 30 days or longer to register with the federal government and submit to fingerprinting.On January 20, Trump issued Executive Order 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion, directing the Department of Homeland Security to fully enforce the law to track non-citizens movement and actions.While critical attention remains focused on the often brutal detainment of Latin American immigrants and migrants in the U.S., an increasing number of Pacific Islanders from Fiji, Tonga, and S moa are alsoreportingaggressive ICE enforcement.
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