GIFF JOHNSON
Marshall Islands Immigration and the RMI Passport Office have a new home that was officially opened Monday this week.
And, specifically speaking, the RMI Passport Office actually has two new offices, the second of which will be opened in the coming weeks.
The new office is located at the former supermarket/deli between ELM Motors and Majuro Water and Sewer Company in Delap.
This marks the third office that Immigration has used in 2025, but now it is a permanent residence for the division of the RMI Attorney General’s Office. Previously, Immigration was at the MIDB building but had to move to a temporary location in Rairok due to major renovations of the MIDB office building.
Although the opening of the new office in Delap is several months later than projected early in 2025 by RMI authorities, it is now open for business and provides these two important offices with a customer-friendly and secure facility.
The Passport Office has been located on the second floor at the AG’s Office in a cramped space and lacking access for elderly and those with disabilities.
The new Passport Office sports a ramp to enter the one-story facility. The reason that it will soon have two offices is that the new office next to ELM is where citizens go to apply for new or renewal of existing passports. The passports will actually be printed in the new, downstairs building that has been constructed — also with a ramp for accessibility — next to the AG’s Office. It is at this second office by the AG’s Office where customers will pick up their passports.
Laura Protestant Church Pastor Daniel Joram Lafita was on hand Monday to bless the new Immigration and Passport Office, and Justice Minister Wisely Zackhras praised the new facilities and congratulated the staff on their new offices.
Among VIPs who attended the opening were Education Minister Gerald Zackios and Nitijela Members Daisy Alik-Momotaro and Dennis Momotaro.
The backlog of passports that had plagued the RMI Passport Office over the past year has now been resolved, said Attorney General Bernard Adiniwin Monday this week.
What this means is that the two-week turnaround time from submission of documents to production of a new passport is now a reality, he said.
The opening this week of the new Passport Office is one piece of big changes that have been in progress over the past several years. This will soon lead to e-passports — passports with “chips” — being issued and a system for Marshallese citizens residing outside the Republic to submit documents and pay online for their passport renewals or new passports.
When Adiniwin took up the AG post five years ago, the old passport system was repeatedly breaking down, causing backlogs of passports waiting to be issued. The main challenge was the printing system was obsolete meaning spare parts were hard to find, so the AG’s Office was pretty much on its own trying to fix it.
Enter AG’s Office IT specialist Ayson Maddison, who “was creative with fixing the printers,” said Adiniwin, who added despite these efforts, “it broke down so many times.”
“It was really challenging because there was no support for the old system,” said Maddison.
The office babied along the old system as it worked to set up a new passport system that was installed and put into operation in 2023.
This has led to significantly increased security features on RMI passports than were possible with the previous printing system. The next steps in the process are to begin using e-passports with chips embedded in them, setting up RMI consulates and embassies to manage intake of passport renewals and new passport requests, and working with the Ministry of Finance to establish an online payment system that can be used for both passport and immigration payments.
Maddison explained that as part of these improvements, the passport cover and interior pages of RMI passports are undergoing design changes that will be seen in 2026 when these are rolled out.
The aim is to complete the redesign and improved security features by March this coming year, Maddison said.
When RMI launches its e-passports, it will become either the fourth or the fifth nation in the Pacific to do so, he said. Solomon Islands was the first to do this in 2016, followed by Fiji and then Vanuatu. Both PNG and the RMI are in the final stages of preparing for a launch of the high-tech passports.
An important feature of the new passport set up is that there will be two offices involved: The Passport Office opened Monday this week next to ELM is where citizens will come to renew their passports or apply for new passports. These data inputted into the system will be transmitted to the passport administration office — which is soon to open in the one-story building next to the current Attorney General’s Office in Enedrik Island.
The passport administration office will print the passports and people will pick up their passports from this office. Both of the new offices are accessible with ramps.