The U.S. Owes Hawaiians Millions of Dollars Worth of Land. Congress Helped Make Sure the Debt Wasn’t Paid. ProPublica 7 hrs ago
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This story was co-published with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
In the 1990s, Hawaii’s two elder statesmen U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka were at the forefront of efforts to ensure that the U.S. compensated Native Hawaiians for ancestral lands taken from them over the years.
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The private deals have a number of things in common: They run directly afoul of the intent of the Hawaiian Home Lands Recovery Act, which was meant to help compensate Hawaiians for lands taken by the federal government in the past. They were made at a time when the need for land has only intensified. They were authorized via special legislation approved by Congress, including members of Hawaii’s own delegation. And some of the acres would have been desirable for homesteads: relatively flat lands where utilities and roads were already in place.