Dr. Paul Maas Risenhoover also asked the assistance of the Americans for Legal Immigration or ALIPAC in the case he is pursuing in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of the National Chamorro Association of the Mariana Islands.
According to its Web site, ALIPAC aims to reduce illegal immigration in the U.S and does not support any amnesty, visa expansion or guest worker program designed to reward illegal aliens or legalize their presence in the country.
The Taiwan-based Risenhoover who represents the Robin Hood International Human Rights Legal Defense Fund have already filed at least 97 voluminous pleadings to support their case.
He said his goal is to ensure that the Covenant “is read similarly to the (Immigration and Nationality Act), so that the land Article securing title in trust to all native persons of Northern Marianas Island descent, is construed similarly to the extension of U.S. citizenship to Indians.”
He said the people of the CNMI should be afforded the privilege to protect their tribal identity.
He said the state of Minnesota may be held liable to the Anishinabe Nation for lost income, interest and other damages for breach of fiduciary duty to this Indian tribe.
“As a consequence of the United States Supreme Court rulings that refer to Tribal Nations as domestic dependent sovereigns, the U.S., and all of its agencies, owe a special and unique duty to Tribal Nations — what the Supreme Court calls a trust responsibility. The trust responsibility arises from treaties, statutes, executive orders, and historical relations between the U.S. government and Tribal Nations,” he said.
Glenn Manglona, president of National Chamorro Association of the Mariana Islands, said the people of the Northern Marianas “have never been actually free to really self govern ourselves.”
The local people, in 1975, overwhelmingly ratified the Covenant, which made the islands part of the U.S.
Manglona claimed that the local people were “manipulated” into signing the Covenant in English “knowing full well that the translation word for word cannot reflect the actual understanding in Chamorro and now the federal government is legislating policies that affect our lives some 6,000 miles away.”
//
