This paper is part of USCRI’s ongoing policy and advocacy work highlighting strengths and weaknesses in existing U.S. and international policy toward migration from climate-affected countries and possible policies or models to pursue in response.

Through a series of bilateral treaties called the Compacts of Free Association, citizens of the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau are granted a unique status as legal nonimmigrants who may work and live in the United States indefinitely without a visa. While this has facilitated tens of thousands of these nations’ citizens migrating to the United States, this migrant population has been repeatedly affected by policy decisions overlooking or excluding them.

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