Hans Joachim Keil III

Hans Joachim "Joe" Keil (11 May 1944 – 31 August 2018) was a Samoan politician, Cabinet Minister, and diplomat. He was a member of the Human Rights Protection Party.

Keil was born in Samoa (then Western Samoa); his father, who was of German origin, was the first official lottery operator in the country. He was educated at Leifiifi Primary School and in New Zealand. He later trained as a pilot at the Spartan School of Aeronautics before working for Air Samoa and Polynesian Airlines.

He was first elected to the Fono in 1988, representing the individual voters constituency. He was re-elected in 2006, and appointed Associate Minister of Trade Commerce and Industry and Labour. He retired from politics at the 2011 election.

Arrest by US border guards On 9 September 2008, while in Branson, Missouri assisting Samoans employed at a theater there, Keil was arrested by United States immigration agents and jailed. A U.S. Navy veteran and American citizen, he had presented his American passport on entry but in Branson also presented his Samoan diplomatic passport. A database search by the agents showed that Keil had twice applied for certification of American citizenship based on being born abroad to a mother who was an American citizen, but she had not resided in the United States for the five years after her sixteenth birthday that the law then required, and Keil had not appeared for the required interview to discuss this. A petition with almost 10,000 signatures was presented to the U.S. Embassy in Apia, Samoa after a peaceful march. Mark Moors, one of the petition presenters and march spokesman, told Radio New Zealand International's correspondent in Apia, Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia that the petition would be passed on to Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State.

A month after his arrest, Keil became aware that he held American citizenship through his father, because his paternal grandfather had become a naturalized citizen of the United States. His suit was rejected by the district court, which held the immigration agents had legal immunity because they had sufficient cause to doubt Keil's claim of American citizenship, and the district court's judgement was upheld on appeal in November 2011.