By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

TWO more Falun Gong practitioners on Saipan have applied for refugee protection in the CNMI, while seven other applicants since March 2006 are still waiting for a decision from the Attorney General’s Office as of yesterday.
“I am upset that after 11 months, there is still no decision on my application but I am also happy that at least I feel safe here; I’m not scared,” Liu Chang Mei, 61, told Variety through the Chinese newspaper Pacific Weekly’s editor in chief Yang Chun who served as a translator.
Liu said he is seeking refugee protection in the CNMI for fear of persecution in China for practicing Falun Gong up to 1999 and for helping his nephew distribute compact discs containing articles against the Chinese Communist Party.
Yang, a Falun Gong practitioner who has been on Saipan since 1999, said two more female Falun Gong practitioners on Saipan applied for refugee protection in September 2006.
“These two women were ordered deported…They have been on Saipan for several years and their entry permits expired last year but they don’t want to go back to China because they fear they will be persecuted there for practicing Falun Gong,” said Yang.
Since last year, Liu said he has been relying on his personal savings, donations and income from temporary jobs to pay for his rent and food.
He said for weeks, he also collected empty aluminum cans and sold them for 65 cents per kilo to buy food.
But Liu said he is willing to wait longer than 11 months for the AGO to decide on his refugee protection application.
Liu’s nephew and three other relatives are also seeking refugee protection, along with female twins. They all came to Saipan last year as tourists until the local court ordered their deportation for overstaying here. They said they were either practicing Falun Gong or helped their relatives who practiced Falun Gong in China.
Falun Gong or Falun Dafa, a system of “mind and body cultivation” introduced by Li Hongzhi to the public in 1992, refers to five sets of meditation exercises and a set of religious teachings.
Falun Gong has been the focus of international controversy since July 20, 1999, when the government of the People’s Republic of China began a suppression of the movement nationwide, which is considered by its practitioners a human rights violation.
Yesterday, Liu said while he misses his family in China, he knows it is impossible to go back home “because I think the moment I get off the plane, the police will put me in jail.”
The Department of Labor, according to Yang, also gave memorandums to these two Falun Gong practitioners allowing them to seek temporary work while their applications for refugee protection are being reviewed by the AGO.
Labor earlier confirmed the memos given to the seven applicants.
Attorney General Matthew Gregory’s office yesterday did not return Variety’s calls for comment. Assistant Attorney General Dorothy Hill, counsel for the Department of Labor, said for confidentiality reasons, the department could not comment on the issue of refugee protection.
The AGO adopted its own refugee protection regulations in September 2004, but the government has not disclosed how many refugee seekers have been granted protection, how many applications are pending, and how many of those applicants have been denied.
However, Variety was able to confirm at least one female Falun Gong practitioner who was granted refugee protection by the AGO since the program started in 2004. Yang said there are about 30 Falun Gong practitioners on Saipan.
Under the AGO regulations on refugee protection, only foreign nationals who have been ordered deported by the CNMI Superior Court, or have been denied entry at a CNMI port of entry, are eligible to apply for refugee protection.
Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez, in his 26-page testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on Feb. 8, cited the establishment of the refugee protection program in the CNMI as one of the steps taken by the local government to protect its borders and better control its immigration.
The Senate panel conducted an oversight hearing on the CNMI’s labor, immigration, law enforcement and economic condition. Its chairman, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., was one of the co-authors of the bill to extend federal immigration to the CNMI in 2000.
Villagomez said federal policies with respect to the granting of refugee status and asylum have attracted some illegal immigration into Guam and the remainder of the U.S., resulting in multi-year adjudications of removal proceedings involving refugee and asylum applications before an immigration judge.
“In contrast, the CNMI under its federally approved process, which is fully consistent with the international law obligations of the United States, can complete its refugee and asylum processing and hearing in less than eight months,” said Villagomez.
Villagomez, in his testimony, said CNMI law enforcement efforts over the past several years show many significant successful prosecutions and a strong record of cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies.
These prosecutions, he said, have involved alien smuggling, international firearms trafficking, employment of illegal aliens, prostitution, and various forms of document fraud.
He said the CNMI assisted federal immigration officials in processing shiploads of smuggled aliens into Guam that the federal officials there were unable to address.
“At no point during the period since 2000 have either federal or local officials developed, or received, credible evidence suggesting any organized criminal activity in the Commonwealth,” Villagomez told the U.S. Senate committee which is in the process of developing a measure to “federalize” the CNMI immigration system.
Villagomez also cited the cooperation between CNMI law enforcement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Services offices located on Guam that “resulted in an important conviction in 2006 of two terrorists associated with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.”
“Unaware of the fact that the CNMI was part of the United States, the terrorists/traffickers were willing to enter the CNMI with the belief that they would be smuggled into Guam to consummate the arms deal…We expect that enforcement directed at alien smuggling will continue to be a high priority during 2007,” he added.