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👋 Good morning and welcome to Power Shift, The Yappie’s weekly guide to the politics, policy news, and activism affecting Asian American + Pacific Islander communities. Email me at [email protected] to share tips, comments, or questions. And support our work by making a donation.
– Edited by Shawna Chen
THE BIG STORY
American Samoa opposes deep-sea mining. The U.S. is auctioning a seabed anyway.
The Rose Atoll Marine National Monument in American Samoa, near the seabed listed for mining. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Region
The Trump administration’s unprecedented move to sell a deep-sea mining lease off American Samoa is the latest chapter in the ongoing conflict over who gets final say over what goes on in and around U.S. territories.
What’s happening: Should the sale of the territory’s outer continental shelf take place as scheduled on Nov. 19, it will be the first deep-sea mining lease sale in U.S. history—in direct opposition to American Samoa’s decision to ban the practice in 2024.
The Marine Minerals Administration (MMA), the federal agency overseeing the sale, has said that the minerals available in the seabed are a “a vital strategic asset in global competition, essential for reaching our energy efficiency goals, strengthening our national defense, and securing domestic supply chains,” per a final leasing notice published last week.
While the 31 million acres of seabed located alongside the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument are technically federal waters, the sale announcement has reopened longstanding tensions over Samoans’ right to self-determination.
In their words: “We oppose deep sea mining with every fiber of our being,” Sabrina Suluai-Mahuka of the environmental organization Finafinau told Hawaii News Now. “It doesn’t make sense economically. It doesn’t make sense environmentally, definitely not culturally.”
“It’s really a reflection of what democracy looks like for the territories,” Suluai-Mahuka added. “We are technically part of the U.S., but we don’t have any voting rights. Our consent is clearly not given in this process.”
American Samoa’s governor and other local leaders similarly oppose the sale, Hawaii News Now notes.
The latest: A Samoan council of leaders, known as Faleula o le Manu’atele, has joined Fa’asao Amerika Samoa and Conservation Council for Hawai‘i to file a lawsuit through environmental law organization Earthjustice.
The complaint alleges that MMA lacks legal authority to sell these leases under treaty requirements that must be satisfied before any mineral leasing can happen in American Samoa.
It also argues that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act doesn’t authorize mineral leasing in U.S. territories and that the sale contradicts MMA’s own regulations.
Reality check: Researchers warn that extracting minerals through deep-sea mining can release toxic and radioactive substances into ocean water, which could lead to public health problems and undermine the entire ecosystem, Oceanographic reports.
Deep-sea mining also has the potential to cause harm not only to marine life but also to American Samoa’s fisheries and cultural traditions, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. The collateral could threaten the territory’s ability to feed local communities and sustain its economy, experts say.
What’s next: Whoever wins the bid will be authorized to carry out preliminary mapping activities; a regulatory process will be finalized before a company can begin full-scale commercial harvesting, according to the MMA notice.
Our Take
Consider the freshwater contamination from the U.S. Navy Red Hill fuel leak in Hawai‘i, the Air Force’s disposal of hazardous waste at Tarague Beach in Guam, or decades of nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands.
Throughout these incidents, the central question—who, exactly, holds the jurisdiction to decide what happens to Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander homelands?—has remained a matter of litigation. Given the U.S. government’s track record, it’s unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.
POLICY TRACKER
The $100,000-a-day penalty ICE agents could face for detaining U.S. citizens
Photo: U.S. Department of Homeland Security
U.S. citizens who are wrongfully detained by ICE could receive $500,000 or more in legal damages under a new House bill.
Sponsored by Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-New Mexico), the legislation comes after a ProPublica investigation found that federal immigration agents have wrongfully detained over 500 U.S. citizens since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The bill would authorize U.S. citizens who are arrested or detained without a warrant or “probable cause” during immigration enforcement proceedings to file lawsuits against the federal government for relief.
They would be able to sue for $500,000 in damages and $100,000 for every day they were detained following the first day of their arrest.
That includes cases where officers injured people, threatened them at gunpoint, and detained them without access to a lawyer or their family despite proof of citizenship.
Agents held more than 100 Americans after questioning their citizenship—including ChongLy Scott Thao, a 56-year-old Hmong American U.S. citizen who says ICE agents broke into his home in St. Paul, Minnesota, and held him at gunpoint, the New York Times notes. (He was released one hour after they took him into custody.)
Nearly all were people of color, ProPublica reports.
The findings directly contradict the Trump administration’s previous claim that “DHS is NOT arresting U.S. citizens by mistake.”
While Stop AAPI Hate recently reported that arrests of Asians have quadrupled under Trump, it’s unclear how many involve wrongfully detained U.S. citizens.
Our Take
Federal agents are largely shielded from lawsuits—Supreme Court precedents only allow cases to proceed in narrow scope. The bar for filing criminal charges against federal agents is also extremely high, according to Reuters.
This bill would give wrongfully detained U.S. citizens a clearer path for redress by establishing a minimum standard of financial compensation.
Whether it actually clears Congress is another story.
ON OUR RADAR
Photo: Andrew Peng
My teenage self remembers former NBA star Jeremy Lin’s “Linsanity” run for the New York Knicks in 2012, and how proud I felt to see an Asian athlete dominating basketball courts. It was all my friends and I would talk about for a couple of weeks, before a torn meniscus halted the cultural phenomenon.
In a recent Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session, Lin talked about his desire “to give back to basketball for the next generation” as one of the new ESPN analysts for the 2026-27 NBA season.
I’m curious about the perspective Lin will bring as one of the few Asian Americans in this space.
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Founded in 2018, The Yappie is an independent, nonprofit news organization reporting on Asian American + Pacific Islander power, politics, and influence. Learn more.
