On March 31, 2017, the DXCC desk announced the deletion of Midway Island and Kure Island from the DXCC entities list. The stated reason for this action was because of changes in the administration resulting from changes in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, of which the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and the Battle of Midway National Memorial, the Hawaii State Seabird Sanctuary at Kure Atoll, and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands State Marine Refuge, of which they are all included.

After further review it has been found that the deletion of these two entities is not supported by the changes that were made to the relevant administrations. Therefore, the deletions from the DXCC list should not have occurred and the two entities, Midway Island KH4 and Kure Island KH7K, will return to the DXCC list as separate entities.