President Trump ran for office on promises to initiate the “largest deportation operation in the history of our country” and has since made aggressive changes in the enforcement procedures of immigration laws.
One of the areas in which we see these changes is in the treatment of citizens of nations that have signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States. For example, more than 40 people from the Marshall Islands have been deported from Northwest Arkansas in the past year.
Clearly, free association doesn’t prevent deportation. To the extent that Sovereign Free Association becomes viewed as an option for Puerto Rico’s political status, it’s worth making sure that voters understand how it works.
The relevant laws
U.S. citizens cannot be deported from the United States; they have no place to be deported to. Deporting a U.S. citizen would amount to banishment, an ancient punishment which has never been legal in the United States. Recently, U.S. citizens have been detained in headline-grabbing examples, but these cases are errors, not legal actions.
Permanent residents and non-immigrant legal residents, including people from the three freely associated states of Palau, The Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, can all be deported. In the past, such deportations have been rare, and have generally been limited to people convicted of serious crimes. However, it is legally possible to deport citizens of the freely associated states.
Recent changes
The Arkansas Marshallese community is the largest outside of the Marshall Islands. There are about 35,000 people living in the Marshall Islands and 15,000 Marshallese people living in Northwest Arkansas. From 2002 to 2024, 47 Marshallese citizens were deported from Northwest Arkansas, generally for serious crimes. Yet 43 Marshallese were deported in the first half of 2025 — nearly as many as in the preceding 22 years. Figures for the full year are not available, but members of the community say that deportations have not decreased.
Some of the recent deportations have been based on misdemeanors, including failure to maintain travel documents, a requirement which has not been enforced in previous years. “Most of their families are evicted from their apartments,” said community leader Albious Latior. “Most are single moms now and are struggling financially, mentally, and spiritually due to their husbands’ or boyfriends’ being deported.” While a few families have reunited in the Marshall Islands, most are experiencing hardships managing since the deportations. The deportees returning to the Marshall Islands are also suffering without their families, and having difficulty finding jobs in a nation which most left as small children.
Deportations have been conducted without hearings, and have involved neighborhood sweeps and workplace raids. In June of last year, 18 Marshallese men were shackled and removed in a single mass deportation event. This level of aggression has not been seen in the past.
Lessons for Puerto Rico
The United States and the Marshall Islands have a negotiated Compact of Free Association. The United States conducted nuclear bomb tests on the Marshall Islands and has paid a token amount of damages, mainly in the form of health assistance to the islanders — though not in the amount requested. The Republic of the Marshall Islands is of strategic military importance to the U.S. and home to the US Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll (USAG-KA), a premier installation hosting the US Space Command and strategic missile defense.
Marshallese are legally allowed to travel, live, work, and study freely in the United States. The Arkansas Marshall Islanders are valued members of their community and are represented by the congressmen and senators of the state of Arkansas. The Marshall Islands are an independent nation represented by an ambassador in Washington.
Nonetheless, since they are not U.S. citizens, Marshallese people can be deported. The recent surge in deportations among the Marshallese could end when the political climate in Washington changes — but that political climate could change for the worse as well as for the better from the point of view of deportations.
Supporters of “Sovereign Free Association” for Puerto Rico uniformly agree on the vital importance of Puerto Ricans keeping their U.S. citizenship, but there is no evidence to support that claim that U.S. citizenship can be maintained under free association, and much evidence against it. Without U.S. citizenship, Puerto Rican citizens with a COFA would be in the same place as citizens of the Marshall Islands. And that place could be back home against their will.
