Levin, D-Mich. and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, was asked by this reporter about CNMI immigration issues and the fate of nonresidents here.
He said he is in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, but as to how it would apply to the CNMI, he could not tell.
“I just don’t know enough about the situation here but we have to do something comprehensively in the U.S.” he said.
He added, however, that in any comprehensive immigration reform, “we are to include the situation here,” referring to the CNMI.
Asked if he is going to support the CNMI-status bill that Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan has introduced, Levin said the Democrats in the Senate work closely with their “brothers” in the U.S. House of Representatives on a lot of issues.
Sablan, who is aligned with the national Democrats, is the author of H.R. 1466 which will grant CNMI-only residency to the nonresidents married to U.S. citizens; those granted permanent residency by the CNMI government; the 92 people who were born here between Jan. 1, 1974 and Jan. 9, 1978; and nonresidents who become immediate relatives of U.S. citizens as of May 8, 2008 “notwithstanding the age” of the U.S. citizens — these are the parents of U.S. citizen children.
Sablan expressed compassion for families that will be torn apart once the umbrella permits of nonresidents expire this Nov. 28.
