While Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. voiced hope that political parties with widely divergent views will get along for the sake of the U.S. Virgin Islands and the nation during his State of the Territory Address on Monday night, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget announced the latest of President Donald Trump’s orders: a pause in all federal loans and grants until at least mid-February.
The freeze reportedly includes disaster relief aid, education and transportation funding for state, local and tribal governments.
Bryan uttered the name “Trump” just once in his address, while touting the billions in federal aid promised to the USVI under the Biden administration. After acknowledging the new and returning lawmakers comprising the 36th Legislature, Bryan extended his congratulations to “President Trump and the newly elected leaders across our great nation.”
“I trust that we can move forward — not as Democrats, Independents or Republicans — but as Americans and Virgin Islanders,” he said.
Bryan said little else about the new administration in Washington or about how its flurry of recent executive actions could impact Virgin Islanders. Though Bryan touted the territory’s billions of dollars in recovery funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Trump’s recent comments about overhauling — or possibly getting rid of — FEMA went unmentioned.
Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett said in a call with the Source Monday night that she paid “keen attention” to the “large amount of issues . . . which are federally related and related to the work of my office, although that may not [have] been stated.”
Bryan announced plans to open a Virgin Islands Technical College in 2025 as a means to “fill the gap in high-demand fields, address workforce shortages and provide residents with access to higher-paying careers.” The announcement came after he said unemployment had reached historic lows — dropping to a “record-breaking 2.9 percent” — though that figure only includes people in the workforce who are actively seeking employment.
“I think that’s a fantastic idea,” Plaskett said, noting that around 50 percent of the local workforce is not actively looking for employment. “So, finding ways for those individuals to come back into the job market, along with recognizing that we have this enormous construction work that needs to take place is, I think, a great way to marry those two.”
In March, V.I. Labor Commissioner Gary Molloy told the Source that the Virgin Islands needed to import approximately 7,000 workers to complete the bevy of federally funded construction projects in the territory’s pipeline. At the time, a Government House spokesperson said that Bryan had approached the U.S. State Department about implementing Visa waiver that would make it easier for contractors to bring in laborers from other countries.
“I don’t think that this environment in Washington, the notion of waivers, are ones that are easily addressed,” Plaskett said Monday. “We recognize that the federal government — and particularly the Republican Party in office — are not interested in increasing immigration, but rather in reducing the number of individuals that are allowed to come into our country. So, I think we need to find more creative ways to engage that workforce that is not participating here in the territory.”
One way to do that, Plaskett said, is to pay students who are enrolled in the Technical College or any other school’s technical program.
Immediately after defending her seat in November, Plaskett told the Source on election night that she was “nauseously optimistic” about Vice President Kamala Harris’s prospects in the 2024 presidential election and confident in Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’s election to Speaker of the House. At the time, Plaskett sought to assure Virgin Islanders that she’d work with whomever to support the territory, regardless of the elections’ outcome.
The picture that emerged in Washington was different. Donald Trump was re-elected to serve as the 47th President of the United States and Republicans clinched a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. Plaskett noted that since taking office, Trump has issued orders, had discussions about removing certain agencies, stopped funding the U.S. State Department’s overseas activities, withdrawn — again — from the Paris Climate Agreement and put a stop to some projects for which Congress had already appropriated funds.
The federal OMB’s temporary pause in federal grants, loans and other financial assistance announced on Monday becomes effective Tuesday. According to a White House memo, each federal agency “must complete a comprehensive analysis of all of their Federal financial assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that may be implicated by any of the President’s executive orders.”
“In the interim, to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal,” according to the memo.
The deluge of developments has left some Virgin Islanders wondering whether the territory and its $22.5 billion in disaster recovery funds will be impacted.
Plaskett said none of the actions are specifically about the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“And we’ve got to continue, to move on from obligation to contracting to movement to payment of the resources that we have, that are in place,” she said. “But this is not specific to the Virgin Islands. This is something that is happening throughout the country, and you can be assured that as President Trump may try to claw back or take resources away from projects which states that they were obligated to have, that you’re going to see governors across the states try to push back on that — whether that’s through lawsuits or other mechanisms.”
Plaskett said she was concerned about actions to shutter government diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — programs, affirmative action and minority contracting.
“Those minority contractors are local contractors here in the Virgin Islands who are able to compete for large bids, because — under some of the minority contracting rules — they do not have to have some of the capitalization that has been difficult for them to have,” she said. “This is going to knock them out of the ability to bid for some of these large contracts.”
Plaskett further noted concern for the territory’s schools, which she said regularly teach students the history of emancipation, enslavement and chattel slavery.
“Those are things that this administration has said that if you continue to teach those things, they will take your funding away,” she said.
The new administration has also raised questions about the future of federal oversight of the territory. The confirmation hearing of Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation is slated for this week, and last week he abruptly dismissed more than a dozen federal inspectors general.
Recent revelations of alleged fraud and corruption were a direct result of federal investigations. Federal prosecutors have brought chargesagainst a number of prominent Virgin Islanders in the past year, including three former members of Bryan’s cabinet.
Plaskett said issues of fraud, waste and abuse are something the 36th Legislature will have to look at.
“They have authority, and they have the ability — through their own inspector general — to do that and to provide additional oversight over federal funding,” she said. “While the governor is the one who is able to utilize those funds, he has to come to the Legislature to ask for permission for his budget every year. They can put additional checks and balances within the Legislature for the governor. We have mechanisms . . . to police ourselves, rather than always relying on the federal government to do that.”
Plaskett said agencies are going to continue to do what inspections they can and noted that Congress passed a law in 2022, the Inspector General Protection Act, which states that a president cannot remove inspectors general without giving 30 days’ notice. The law also places some limitations on a president’s ability to replace fired inspectors.
“We know that [President Trump] has not been in place for 30 days, therefore he could not have given Congress 30 days’ notice,” Plaskett said, adding that the terminations are already being disputed and will likely lead to legal challenges. “So, I don’t think that people should get incredibly rattled by this at this point — that the inspector generals will still be there, but there are also mechanisms within our own local government to police ourselves.”
Likewise, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York quickly pushed back against Monday’s OMB funding pause, saying in a statement that the money was allocated by Congress and that the agency’s memo “blatantly disobeys the law.” He added that Trump must “reverse course immediately.”
Plaskett said she will continue to fight for the rights of Virgin Islanders while working with colleagues in Congress and pointed to her selection to the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee as evidence of her ability to work across the aisle.
“So that should give Virgin Islanders a sense of the fact that individuals who stand for their rights and speak up for it are not necessarily put in punishment in Washington for doing that,” she said.
