STATEMENT FROM DELEGATE JAMES MOYLAN ON THE RENEGOTIATION OF THE COFA AGREEMENTS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – APRIL 24, 2023
STATEMENT FROM DELEGATE JAMES MOYLAN ON THE RENEGOTIATION OF THE COFA AGREEMENTS
(Washington, D.C.) While it is unfortunate that the Biden administrations 2024 budget submittal did not provide any reimbursements for communities who host migrants of the Compact of Free Association (COFA) nations, the issue of seeking funding for equitable payments is far from over. Our office continues to work with various entities, including the Office of the Governor to ensure that Guam is not left behind in this process. The efforts include:
• Just last week, during an oversight hearing for the House Natural Resources Committee, I had the opportunity to question Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland on the inequities Guam faces with the COFA agreements, and she committed to work with our office on not just previous reimbursements, but on actions moving forward. Our office has reached out to the Departments legislative liaison to secure the meeting dates. • Since day one our office has worked closely with the Governor’s office, primarily former Senator Carlotta Leon Guerrero, to ensure that the data is prepared for when the House Natural Resources Committee (HNRC), which has oversight over COFA Agreements, discusses the renegotiated contracts. Her efforts in bringing the key entities to the table together have been very beneficial for this process and we thank her.
• I requested the Chairman of the HNRC, Rep. Bruce Westerman (Arkansas) for a HNRC Congressional Delegation (CODEL) to visit Guam to witness firsthand the impact of the COFA, and the request was approved. We are just awaiting the dates. I would like to note, that Chairman Westerman’s district in Arkansas is also a host community for COFA migrants, and thus he is very familiar with the impact it places on a district’s financial resources.
• Our office is working closely with the Office of Representative Ed Case (Hawaii), whose district is also a host community of COFA migrants and faces similar inequities, and this includes cosponsoring legislation to increase federal programs for COFA migrants.
While we recognize that the Biden administration’s intent is to increase the access to federal programs for COFA migrants to reduce the drain on the resources in the district of a host community, as well as to increase the investments into the COFA nations to lessen the need of migration, the reality is that this legal migration will still take place. Guam will continue to be a popular host destination; thus, inequitable reimbursements are inevitable, which is why we need to do more. In less than five months, our office has taken many aggressive approaches on this topic, and while we recognize that an issue of this magnitude will take some time to be resolved, we are also seeing some positive traction in the process.
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