For several months, the Immigration Office has been confiscating passports of foreigners entering the territory at both the airport and port.
However the practice has been stopped.
KHJ News had enquired about the confiscation of passports after a business owner from Samoa informed us about her experience two weeks ago when she visited the territory on a one day shopping trip.
The woman said she traveled here on a 14-day permit that a local resident obtained from the Immigration Office.
She was surprised when the immigration officer at the airport said that her passport would be held until she returned.
The visitor said she couldn’t understand why her passport was confiscated when she was using a visitor permit.
Plus she hadn’t heard prior to coming here that immigration was holding passports upon arrival.
The woman said her passport is her personal belonging and the Immigration Office should have asked for her permission to hold it.
Nevertheless she obeyed the immigration agent and left the airport without her passport.
KHJ News asked Attorney General Talauega Eleasalo Ale whether the holding of foreign passports was a new policy.
The AG did not know this was happening and said there’s no such policy.
Requests for comments from the governor via his executive assistant Iulogologo Joseph Pereira have not been answered.
When we inquired with the Immigration Office today we learned that the AG at a meeting last week put a stop to the holding of passports.
A senior immigration official who did not want to be named said for several months, Immigration holds onto passports of visiting foreigners, upon arrival in the territory at the dock and airport. The intention is to return the passports when the visitors leave or when their sponsors come and pick them up.
According to the official this was done to curb the number of visitors who don’t return to their countries but end up overstaying.
According to the immigration official, AG Talauega Eleasalo Ale put a stop to the holding of passports after he met with the Chief Immigration Officer Peseta Dennis Lutu and his staff last week.
KHJ News asked who initiated the policy and the official said the person responsible was someone below the level of the AG but did not give a name or title.
When the late Malaetasi Togafau was attorney general, he ordered foreign passports of short term visitors to be turned over to immigration agents at the port and airport.
The practice attracted a lot of negative publicity for American Samoa.
