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The Halau Ola One Stop Center in Honolulu, which assists Micronesians in adjusting to life in Hawaii, has received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior. Read more

The Halau Ola One Stop Center in Honolulu, which assists Micronesians in adjusting to life in Hawaii, has received a $250,000 grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Micronesians, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said in a statement Friday, “face a unique set of challenges when adjusting to life in Hawaii.” The award came via the Partners in Development Foundation, the Micronesian center’s mentoring agency.

The center, based at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Kalihi, is an outreach project by a nonprofit group, We Are Oceania, which seeks to provide a centralized support system to help Micronesians deal with homelessness, urgent medical needs, student truancy and job training.

The Compact of Free Association (COFA) allows for citizens of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau to live and work in the U.S. as legal nonimmigrants. The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimated in 2013 that there were 17,170 Micronesian migrants in the state.

Firefighters clean motor oil spill in Kihei

Maui fire crews responded to a small oil spill Saturday afternoon in Kihei.

At about 4:30 p.m. firefighters found four jugs of what appeared to be used motor oil on the roadway of the far right southbound lane of Piilani Highway at East Waipuilani Road.

Vehicles had driven over the containers and spread the oil along the right-hand turn lane and onto East Waipuilani Road. The oil slick tracked for about 200 yards down East Waipuilani Road toward South Kihei Road.

The crews cleaned up the spill with an absorbent material like cat litter.

HAWAII ISLAND

Daughter of deported farmer is struggling to manage land

The daughter of a Hawaii coffee farmer who was deported months ago to his native Mexico said the farm will stay afloat if her father can return to the United States within a year.

The Kona farmer’s daughter, Victoria Magana Ledesma, is managing the farm for her father, Andres Magana Ortiz, while also juggling an accounting internship at a Hawaii resort, West Hawaii Today reported. The 21-year-old said she is used to helping her father and is familiar with the work, but admits she has never done it on her own before.

“It’s a lot of responsibility to bear,” she said. “It’s really harder than I thought.”

Before he was deported, Magana Ortiz managed his own 12 acres of land and also looked over more than 138 acres of farmlands owned by others.

Even with Magana Ortiz’s family and workers helping her before the first major round of harvesting, Magana Ledesma said the farm can’t survive without her father for long.

“He needs to be back within a year for this to stay the way it is,” she said.

Magana Ortiz came to the United States without a visa in 1989 when he was 15. He began receiving deportation warnings in 2011, and later obtained work authorization and stays of deportation to avoid being sent back to his native country.

Magana Ortiz’s various applications to obtain legal status were rejected by officials, and he was deported before his daughter had the chance to file her own petition for her father to obtain permanent residence. Magana Ledesma remains confident that her father will be able to return to the United States after the family received a large amount of support from various officials and groups.

She also hopes her father’s case will shed light on other families who are faced with similar situations.

“I think I’d just like people to understand immigrants are not here to take things that are someone else’s,” she said. “I think they are just trying to have a better life than they did in their own country, to actually have a chance at having a decent living.”