{"id":377926,"date":"2022-10-19T06:06:25","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T20:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=377926"},"modified":"2022-10-19T06:06:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T20:06:25","slug":"amatas-statement-on-supreme-court-declining-fitisemanu-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/amatas-statement-on-supreme-court-declining-fitisemanu-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Amata\u2019s statement on Supreme Court declining Fitisemanu case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>American Samoa Delegate Uifa\u2019atali Amata\u00a0welcomes news on Monday that the U.S. Supreme Court did not take up the Fitisemanu case, allowing the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals decision to stand and in essence confirming the prior Tuaua case in the D.C. Court of Appeals. This outcome helps preserve American Samoa\u2019s cultural priorities and right of self-determination.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, we owe an enormous thank you to attorney Michael F. Williams, a prominent attorney with a prestigious law office, who has represented American Samoa pro bono on this case for years.  He is married to Julin Pan Williams of Lauli\u2019i Village. We hope this is the final word so that we don\u2019t continue to put Mr. Williams through all of this.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI welcome this outcome from the Supreme Court, and the fact they chose to respect the self-determination of the people of American Samoa, and the emphasis our people place on preserving our Fa\u2019a Samoa (the Samoan way). This result is of utmost importance to preserving the American Samoa we know with the continuation of family land and our matai heritage, which our ancestors very clearly did not intend to let go in their actions of 1900 and 1904. Our people value American Samoa\u2019s right of self-determination, with great love for the United States as expressed in our people\u2019s high rate of service to the country.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe issue of the Insular Cases can be addressed by Congress, based on self-determination by the people of each territory. Finally, Congress should now pass my bill, H.R. 1941, to better assist U.S. nationals, especially those living in the [United] States, who wish to personally choose citizenship. Under my sensible and concise bill, a U.S. national can quickly and affordably become a citizen as an individual, without forcing a group change on the islands.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod bless American Samoa and the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Uifa&#8217;atali Amata (Special to the Saipan Tribune)<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Uifa\u2019atali Amata is the delegate of American Samoa in the U.S. Congress.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Samoa Delegate Uifa\u2019atali Amata\u00a0welcomes news on Monday that the U.S. Supreme Court did not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":331237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[167,139],"class_list":["post-377926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-american-samoa","tag-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}