The U.S. Congress must pass a law to implement the CNMI Senate’s recommendation, but in an interview with KSPN-2 aired on Friday evening, Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan said he doubts if U.S. lawmakers would act on it.
Senate Vice President Jude U. Hofschneider, R-Tinian, said the Senate Committee on Federal Relations and Independent Agencies still has to conduct three more public hearings on Rota, Tinian and Saipan to discuss the recommendation with the people.
The committee held a series of public hearings last year in response to concerns that CNMI leaders and people were not consulted when the U.S. Department of the Interiorcame up with its own recommendation to give long-term guest workers improved status.
The final copy of the CNMI Senate recommendation, which all the senators signed before Hofschneider presented it to the media, stated that “all nonresident workers residing in the commonwealth…for 10 years on the date U.S. Public Law 110-229 became law, shall receive the same immigration status held by citizens of the Freely Associated States, but only after remaining in the commonwealth for five years after the date U.S.P.L. 110-229 became law.”
It further stated that “No person who has violated any commonwealth or federal law, other than a traffic law, shall be eligible to receive such immigration status.”
U.S.P.L. 110-229, the federalization law, took effect in 2008.
Hofschneider said the copy of the recommendation will be posted on the CNMI Legislature’s website, http://www.cnmileg.gov.mp/senate.asp.
Public hearings will be held at the Rota Round House on Feb. 18; at the multi-purpose center on Saipan on Feb. 23; and at Tinian Elementary School on Feb. 25.
During last year’s public hearings, the Senate report stated that “the public was overwhelmingly alarmed about offering so many nonresident workers an immigration status that would allow them to become citizens of the U.S. in the CNMI and in effect it would have on the status and rights of citizens who are of Northern Marianas Descent.”
Gov. BenignoR. Fitial is opposed to the granting of improved status but is in favor of extending the transition period, which ends in Dec. 2014, for five years.
The Senate report said Interior failed to consider the negative effects its recommendation would have on the islands and the local people.
Permitting non-immigrants to eventually become citizens of the NMI would unintentionally displace indigenous people who would lose control of their ancestral homeland, the report added.
The FAS are Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia: Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap. FAS citizens can reside, study or work in the U.S. and its territories.
