State agency's preschool production pipeline bulges while other projects hit roadblocks
RELATED PHOTO GALLERY Inside what looks like it could've been an art classroom at a Moiliili elementary school, a former engineer is leading a small team on a big quest to develop preschool classrooms, teacher housing and a more than $300 million new school.
Riki Fujitani, executive director of the state School Facilities Authority, has made major strides in one lane of work a little over a year since the fledgling agency's first leader resigned under fire at the Legislature, though struggles in other areas remain.
During the waning 2024-2025 school year, the SFA added new public preschool space for 849 children, after an initial 213 preschool seats the year before, when some state lawmakers were pushing to abolish the autonomous agency four years after its creation by the Legislature without initial funding or staff.
Next school year, the agency with eight employees and expanding funds anticipates adding preschool space for an additional 497 children toward a long-term goal to help produce classrooms for all Hawaii 3-and 4-year-olds by 2032 under a 2023 Ready Keiki initiative led by Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke.
Only a little more than half of all preschool-age children in Hawaii are enrolled in preschool, and 95 % who are enrolled go to private programs that can cost several hundred dollars to over $1, 000 per month. Serving more children with free public preschool can provide families financial relief and set up keiki for better learning outcomes starting in kindergarten.
Work to develop affordable rental housing largely for public schoolteachers plus a new middle and elementary school on Maui has not made nearly as much progress. Yet SFA has found some solid footing after floundering for most of its existence.
Fujitani, who was once an electrical engineer at satellite maker TRW Inc. and later became a litigation attorney, kind of looks at SFA as a special-projects team.
'My analogy I tell people is like Skunk Works, ' he said during an interview in the agency's spartan office at Prince Jonah Kuhio Elementary School. 'Lockheed had to set up Skunk Works to build the stealth fighter.'
Brian Canevari, SFA program manager for teacher housing, has another business analogy for the agency, which is governed by a volunteer board.
'It's kind of like a startup working in a garage, except it's a classroom building, ' he said.
Preschool pipeline Much of what SFA has done so far has been procured through design consultants and other contractors.
All preschool classrooms created by the agency to date stem from minor renovations made to state Department of Education classrooms not needed for higher grades. Such work includes furniture, flooring and bathroom fixture replacements requiring no building permits and at an average cost of $345, 000 per classroom, or $17, 250 per seat for a typical 20-seat classroom.
The agency projects producing close to 100 classrooms this way for 2, 039 students by mid-2027, exhausting all spare DOE classroom space.
SFA also has a couple major school renovation projects to produce five classrooms for 90 children.
One of these involves major changes to three classrooms and building one new classroom at Waialae Elementary Public Charter School. Construction is expected to begin on the three classroom conversions this summer and finish before school resumes in August. Building the new classroom is slated for next summer.
The project is budgeted at $50, 000 per seat, or $1 million for a 20-seat classroom.
A third SFA strategy to deliver preschool classrooms is new construction in new or existing state buildings. For instance, eight classrooms for 126 children are being built in a graduate housing tower rising at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. That project costs about $79, 000, or $10 million in total.
New classrooms also are planned for the Pearl City Public Library, Waikoloa Public Library, Kauai Community College, 'Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo, Paia Elementary School on Maui, Malama Honua Public Charter School in Waimanalo and a state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands community center on Hawaii island.
SFA plans to deliver classrooms for 1, 392 children using new construction from 2026 to 2029.
All currently planned preschool projects would serve 3, 521 children, or a little more than half of 6, 737 children in need estimated by Ready Keiki.
Fujitani said fulfilling the Ready Keiki plan represents an 'aspirational ' goal that would require 56 sites.
Balky start SFA is five years old, but initial funding and staff date only to 2022. That year, the Legislature appropriated $200 million for preschool classroom development and money for staffing.
Then-Gov. David Ige appointed career educator Chad Keone Farias to lead SFA for a six-year term. Farias, however, resigned in January 2024 as a dozen state senators pushed a bill to repeal the agency.
The departure by Farias also followed big funding reductions for preschools and teacher housing in 2023 by Gov. Josh Green, who released only $81.7 million of the $200 million for preschool development.
Separately, Green eliminated all but $5 million of a $170 million legislative appropriation for teacher housing in 2023, vetoing $120 million and later redirecting $45 million for Maui wildfire disaster relief.
Fujitani, who in 2017 had joined a division of DOE working on deferred school maintenance, was asked by SFA Board Chair Alan Oshima to succeed Farias at least on an interim basis. The 64-year-old Fujitani, who had once been a litigator in a law firm where Oshima was a partner, agreed with some reluctance.
'It was not in good shape, ' Fujitani said.
He replaced most of what had been a staff of six and canceled plans to lease office space in Kakaako to house SFA. 'We had to reload, ' he said.
Since 2024, the Legislature has appropriated an additional $120 million for preschools—$100 million last year and $20 million this year—and SFA's staff is up to eight, including program managers for preschool, teacher housing and new school development, a planning officer, an administrative services officer and a business manager.
Four more authorized positions are as yet unfilled, including a procurement specialist, a land agent and a secretary under SFA's roughly $1.7 million annual operating budget.
While the agency has racked up preschool achievements, developing teacher housing and new schools has been more problematic.
Housing hang-ups In 2023, the Legislature assigned seven teacher housing projects to SFA with the $170 million that Green cut down to $5 million.
At the top of the list was $65 million appropriated for housing at Mililani High School. Another $25 million was slated for Nanakuli and Waipahu housing projects, and four $20 million projects were directed for Windward Oahu, Maui County, Hawaii island and Kauai.
Fujitani told House Finance Committee members during a Jan. 9 briefing that the best place for affordable teacher housing is urban Honolulu, and that SFA was assigned what became a 109-unit pilot project in Mililani that hasn't gone well.
After the funding cuts, SFA used the remaining $5 million to procure a development agreement with nonprofit affordable-housing developer Pacific Housing Assistance Corp.
A contract with Pacific Housing was signed in August, but the project site drew objections from school officials, and the developer is studying alternative site prospects.
SFA earlier this year asked lawmakers for $20 million to procure five more housing development agreements. The Legislature approved $2 million.
Some lawmakers did consider appropriating $50 million for the Mililani project instead of relying on Pacific Housing to arrange its own financing. But the proposed funding, inserted into House Bill 329 that aimed to clarify SFA responsibilities, was not in the final version of the bill that passed.
Meanwhile, SFA hasn't been able to obtain other DOE sites for teacher housing despite identifying about 25 prospects and having the statutory power to acquire such land with approval from the governor.
Canevari told SFA's board at its April meeting that DOE isn't supportive of what he called 'highly probable ' candidate sites.
DOE spokesperson Nanea Kalani said the response was preliminary feedback.
'Any project of this nature requires careful consideration to ensure it doesn't interfere with student safety, daily school operations, or the learning environment, ' she said in an email. 'Our initial reviews, looking at factors like traffic and parking, highlighted the need for further due diligence before we could support development at these locations.'
Fujitani believes bureaucratic inertia at DOE is stifling progress on teacher housing development.
'Change is hard, ' he said, gesturing to a big open space at Kuhio Elementary adjacent to three roughly 20-story residential buildings where he believes 800 homes could be developed. 'It's just inertia.'
Some state lawmakers tried to drive the issue earlier this year by adding language to Senate Bill 1393 to repeal SFA's power to have DOE convey land upon SFA's request and approval of the governor. The bill did not pass.
New school division Another clash between SFA, DOE and state lawmakers has been over new schools.
SFA was created in part to take over new school development from DOE using innovative ways to expedite construction while leaving DOE to address huge deferred maintenance needs for existing schools.
Yet lawmakers have provided partial funding to SFA for only one new school, an envisioned middle and elementary campus in Central Maui where an initial $20 million appropriation was made in 2022 followed by $10 million in 2023 and $9 million in 2024.
This year, Green sought $100 million more for the project, which is expected to cost over $300 million, though the Legislature approved $37 million.
DOE, meanwhile, has plans for about 16 other new schools.
During a Jan. 14 SFA briefing to a pair of Senate committees overseeing education and budgetary matters, some lawmakers expressed frustration with the agency's limited role in new school development.
'It seems like that need is not a need, ' said Sen. Kurt Fevella. 'It's a big mess.'
Fevella (R, Ewa Beach-Ocean Pointe-Iroquois Point ) complained that the Ewa region has several badly overcrowded schools and a bigger need for new schools than Central Maui.
Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz (D, Mililani-Wahiawa-Whitmore Village ) questioned who determines new school priorities.
'There's a big disconnect between what's going on in the operations of DOE vs. SFA, ' he told Fujitani. 'Your board has no idea what's going on with board business at DOE. That's awkward. Some of that got to get cleaned up.'
Fujitani responded by saying DOE data shows a big need for a new middle and elementary school in Central Maui, and that he is pursuing the project at the Legislature's direction.
SFA has described the Maui project an opportunity to produce a new school in half the time and 75 % of the cost of a typical new Hawaii school by using new standards, a design-build method and modular construction.
To date, only $20 million of the $76 million appropriated for the school has been released. Of the $20 million, $2.2 million has been spent on design work and the rest is committed to be spent on similar work.
Fujitani said construction on an initial $180 million phase for 300 middle-school students could begin in 2028 and finish in 2030. A second phase is envisioned for 600 to 700 more middle school students. A third phase would be for elementary students. Projected full capacity is 1, 450 students.
At one point during this year's legislative session, some lawmakers proposed $30 million in HB 329 for SFA to take over DOE work to replace a Lahaina elementary school destroyed in the 2023 wildfire disaster. The proposal did not end up in the final version of the bill sent to Green.
HB 329, if enacted, would eliminate SFA's prior responsibility to develop all new public schools and instead refocus the agency's responsibility mainly on developing preschool and childcare facilities, workforce housing and new school development assigned by the Legislature, the governor or the state Board of Education.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' Confusion over voting is not just an Alaska problem The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Is U.S. citizenship a birthright? Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' A question of intent About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
Hamilton Spectator
2 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa , an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' Confusion over voting is not just an Alaska problem The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Is U.S. citizenship a birthright? Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders . The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states . The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying,' Smith told The Associated Press. 'He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' A question of intent About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii , said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.' ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Jennifer Sinco Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? 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San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Is U.S. citizenship a birthright? Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' A question of intent About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' A dispute entangled with a colonial past The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' Legal questions over status to be tested anew But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.'
