Governor Lolo Moliga is pleased with the Supreme Court decision on the US citizenship lawsuit saying it preserves individual rights of the people of American Samoa to make a decision whether to become a U.S. citizen or remain a U.S. national.
The governor said in a statement released today that “this was the central thought which prompted the American Samoa Government‘s intervention.”
Lolo goes on to say that “becoming a U.S. citizen was secondary to the need to preserve individual rights to freely determine whether to become a U.S. citizen or remain a U.S. national.”
After all, said the governor, “America Samoans are not prohibited by law to become US citizens if they so choose. Those who feel that they are being discriminated against because of the U.S. national designation on their passports should become U.S. citizens.”
Another reason why the governor is very pleased with the Supreme Court decision is because “it gives American Samoa the latitude to determine for itself the political relationship it wishes to establish with the federal government.”
Lolo said, “If the Supreme Court ruling imposed an automatic U.S. citizenship on all American Samoans born in the territory, it would have created political complications with a devastating impact on our land tenure system and usurp our rights to determine the political format we wish to adopt.”
He notes that, “Those who sought…automatic U.S. citizenship were exercising their individual rights guaranteed by our local Revised Constitution and the United States Constitution.”
The governor suggests a change in the handling of applications for US citizenship from American Samoans.
He recommends that the existing process to facilitate becoming a US citizen should be changed to allow American Samoans who wish to become US citizens to apply directly from the territory, eliminate the waiting time before the application is considered and eliminate or reduce the passport fee to align with the existing fee schedule for other nationalities.
