Congresswoman Pleased with Supreme Court Decision

17290015

The US Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the American Samoa citizenship case is a big win for territorial  leaders including Congresswoman Aumua Amata Radewagen, who feels the case never should have gotten as far as it did. KHJ News Washington D.C. correspondent Matt Kaye reports—

Congresswoman Radewagen was working much of the day on an official statement on the profoundly important case for American Samoa, after the highest court in the land declined to take up Tuaua v. US, letting a lower court ruling stand.

The US Supreme Court offered no explanation for its decision, and rarely does explain why it won’t hear a case.

But that was of little consequence to the Congresswoman, who feels the case should never have gotten as far as the Supreme Court, and sees the action as a big win for American Samoans’ right to self-determination, upheld last year by the lower, US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Amata said then–
Play Audio

Amata has introduced her “American Samoa Freedom of Choice Act” to address both issues…and to simplify the naturalization process, already established. But her bill is still being perfected, and is unlikely to see action in this Congress.

The Congresswoman stresses, American Samoans are not “immigrants,” rather US nationals, who “owe permanent allegiance to the United States.”

Judge Janice Rogers Brown, writing last year, for a unanimous court in Tuaua (Twa-oo-ah) v. US, noted, it would be “anomalous to impose citizenship over the objections of the American Samoan people, as expressed through their democratically elected representatives.”

The case was brought by several American Samoans and the Samoan Federation of America, seeking birthright citizenship status for American Samoan nationals. It was argued by prominent attorneys Theodore Olson and American Samoa’s Charles Ala’ilima.

Judge Brown wrote, both the ruling and the Court’s reasoning are a victory for those who support the principle that the American Samoan people have the authority to determine their own political status.

To hold the contrary, she wrote, would have been an exercise of paternalism-if not overt cultural imperialism- offensive to the shared democratic traditions of the United States and American Samoa.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,