The Justice Department’s response this week to 43 US lawmakers asking DOJ to repudiate the Insular Cases “racist rhetoric” is silent on American Samoa’s political status—signaling the status quo will continue.
KHJ News Washington correspondent Matt Kaye has the details.
DOJ’s response to US lawmakers appears to be a win for American Samoa, that the Biden Administration accepts that the Insular Cases are racist but won’t seek a reversal in the Fitisemanu case.
That would be a loss for activist Neil Weare who mounted a years’ long unsuccessful battle in the Fitisemanu case against the Insular Cases that the Supreme Court refused to hear on appeal.
The case had he won could have jeopardized American Samoa’s right to self-determination.
Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata in her separate May 7th letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland asked that DOJ not rely on the Insular Cases’ doctrine of territorial non-incorporation to jeopardize American Samoa’s political status…and do so without “local democratic self-determination.”
Her request was based on the 1900-1904 Deeds of Cession that established relations between the US and American Samoa and was based on the American principle of ‘government by consent.’
Amata’s office says the Congresswoman expects a response to her letter that directly addresses the concerns she raised.
Amata argues the Fitisemanu case referred to favorably by the 43 lawmakers in their letter, was an attempt to use the federal courts to change the political status and federal relations for American Samoa without local self-determination.
And under the Constitution’s Territorial Clause, she says that’s a political question for Congress, not within the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
Congresswoman Amata concludes DOJ’s letter “does not repudiate the actual federal territorial law of the Insular Cases,” that defines unincorporated territory status—something consistent with both legal and political realities in the modern era Insular Cases.
Now, she wants the Justice Department to put that in writing.
