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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Mark Thiessen,Becky Bohrer and Gene Johnson

A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship

Voting American Samoans - (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building.

But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread.

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