More aid to Pacific islands advocated

By Susan Roth
Advertiser Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The investigative arm of Congress has recommended that the government target money for Micronesia and the Marshall Islands to health and education needs to lessen the effect of migration from the islands to Hawai'i.

In comments to the General Accounting Office, which issued the recommendation late Friday in a 109-page report, Gov. Ben Cayetano said he was skeptical of the conclusion.

Health and education money might help "in the very long term, but the demonstrated inability of (the island nations) to develop functioning health and educational systems despite 15 years of targeted U.S. aid suggests that this is an illusory hope at best, absent profound changes in the way such assistance is delivered," Cayetano said.

Rather, the state of Hawai'i should be adequately compensated in direct federal financial assistance for more than $86 million in health care and education costs associated with migration from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands since 1996, Cayetano contended. Although Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have received some federal aid to help cover costs of migration, Hawai'i has received none.

The Compacts of Free Association enacted in 1986 for Micronesia and the Marshall Islands gave citizens of the Pacific islands the right to live and work in the United States. The effect of nearly 14,000 migrants, most of whom are living in poverty, has been staggering for U.S. Pacific territories and increasingly problematic for Hawai'i.

The GAO report found that 5,500 migrants from Micronesia and the Marshall Islands lived in Hawai'i in 1997. Most came primarily for employment and secondarily for a better education. Many have been working in low-skill, low-wage jobs and living in poverty.

In Hawai'i, 59 percent have been living in poverty, and only 39 percent of those of working age have been employed. Most of those working in Hawai'i have been in retail jobs, followed by agricultural work. Only slightly more than half of those age 25 and older had high school diplomas.

State officials said education costs associated with migrants totaled $10.6 million in 2000 and accounted for 58 percent of the total impact of migration, and they cited more than $3.7 million in health costs covered by the state last year.

"Targeting future U.S. assistance to the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands for education and health purposes might reduce some of the motivation to migrate," the report concludes. "Further, improvements in migrant health and education status would be expected to reduce adverse migrant impact in U.S. destinations."

Cayetano pointed out that since fiscal 1987, the federal government has given Micronesia more than $1.3 billion and the Marshall Islands more than $623 million with little accountability for the money.

"Unless U.S. assistance is provided through grants with strict conditions and accompanied by a political will to enforce them, 'targeted' assistance will do nothing to alleviate Hawai'i's compact impact," the governor said.