Hawaii is part of the US, not a sovereign country | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: Hawaii was never made a US state

An Aug. 19 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a screenshot of a post shared on X, formerly Twitter.

"Hawaii was never really made a state!" reads part of the X post. "Hawaii is a sovereign country. Also, it means Obama is not a citizen of the US!"

It then links to another X post, which claims a treaty of annexation was never signed between Hawaii and the U.S., and, therefore, Hawaii isn't part of the U.S.

The Instagram post garnered more than 1,000 likes in three days, while the original X post garnered more than 2,000 likes in four days. Similar versions of the claim have been shared on Instagram and Facebook.

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Our rating: False

Hawaii was officially annexed by the U.S. in 1898 and became the 50th state in 1959, according to documents published by the National Archives.

Hawaii is part of the US

Hawaii is not a sovereign country, as the X post claims.

Though the initial annexation treaty was met with vehement protests and defeated in 1898, Congress submitted a new resolution later that year in the form of a joint resolution, which required only a simple majority vote in both houses instead of a 2/3 majority vote, according to the National Archives.

The resolution went against the wishes of the majority of the Hawaiian people and Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani, but it was signed by President William McKinley. The state was officially annexed by the U.S. on July 7, 1898.

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The Hawaii Admission Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on March 18, 1959, declaring Hawaii a part of the U.S.

Eisenhower said in his statement that he had been pushing for the act to be passed since his inauguration in 1953.

In June of 1959, the people of Hawaii voted to join the union in an overwhelming majority of 132,773 to 7,971 votes, according to a letter from the Hawaii governor preserved in Eisenhower's presidential library. On August 21 of that year, Eisenhower signed the proclamation officially welcoming Hawaii as the 50th state of the U.S.

Obama is a US citizen

USA TODAY has previously debunked several claims revolving around former President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship.

The White House published the standard and long forms of the former president's birth certificate and both show he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on Aug. 4, 1961.

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Obama even addressed the speculation around his citizenship in a 2011 press briefing.

"We've had every official in Hawaii, Democrat and Republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirm that, yes, in fact, I was born in Hawaii, Aug. 4, 1961, in Kapiolani Hospital," Obama said during the briefing.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post and the X user whose post was linked for comment but did not immediately receive a response. The original X user couldn't be contacted.

The claim has been debunked by Lead Stories.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Post falsely claims Hawaii is a sovereign country | Fact check