Immigration authorities in the Marshall Islands appear to be cracking down on the illegal baby trade after they recently stopped three people and an infant from boarding a flight to Hawaii at Majuro airport.
Our correspondent Giff Johnson says Marshall Islands women are increasingly involved in adoptions to the United States but using the visa-free entrance privilege to travel to the U.S. for adoption is illegal under the Compact of Free Association.
Jenny Meyer asked him what happened at the airport.
Passengers board a United Airlines flight in Majuro. For the first time in late January, Marshall Islands Immigration officials detained several passengers at Majuro's international airport for questioning in relation to participation in illegal adoptions in the United States.
Photo: Giff Johnson
Transcript
GIFF JOHNSON: What happened at Majuro International Airport was that an adoption agent who is a Marshall Islander based in the US was seen at the airport checking in a couple of women, one who was pregnant and one with a young baby for a flight out to Honolulu. A tip was given to Immigration Department and what they did was they pulled aside the agent and the two women to question them about what they were doing. The up shot of it was that the women did say that they were planning to travel to the US to adopt their children. The thing about this is that according to the terms of the Compact of Free Association it's illegal to do that.
JENNY MEYER: How many people are involved with this kind of scheme do you think, how many babies are actually being illegally traded? It sounds almost like human trafficking.
GJ: It's hard to put a number on it. But we see adoptions happening in different locations, in Hawaii in particular and in Arkansas where there is a large population of Marshall Islanders and maybe in some other places as well. And in Hawaii it's risen to the point where healthcare providers, social service workers, are raising concerns about it. The thing is for it to be legal there is a whole process. Americans have to apply through the Department of Homeland Security, they have to go through the court system here. But of course because Marshallese have visa free access to the US there's an obvious I guess you could say incentive to cut short all the red tape and if you get a person into the US then they're just in the US and you can run an adoption through the court system in the US.
JM: So do you think this latest detainment of this man signals a crackdown on what's legal and what's illegal there in the Marshall Islands in terms of adoption?
GJ: It's certainly going to send a message to people who are in this industry that authorities in the Marshall Islands are paying more attention to this. As far as I know, and I've talked to a couple of people about this, this is the first time there's been this type of intervention. And the intervention of pulling them out from the departure area meant that they couldn't go on the flight. Now the agent did leave a few days later so that happened. But in terms of just the ongoing travel of young women either who are pregnant or have young babies who want to go up for adoption, obviously that's become a higher priority issue for authorities in the Marshall Islands to check in to. So I think it should send a message that there's some concern about it on this end.
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