Marissa Flores
REPRESENTATIVE Marissa Flores believes that the CNMI needs its own U.S. district attorney.
During the miscellaneous part of the House session on Friday, Flores asked the head of the U.S. 902 panel, Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor, to help the CNMI “have our own district attorney, to help us with this white-collar crime that keeps going on in the government.”
Currently, a U.S. Attorney’s Office serves Guam and the CNMI.
“Ms. Cantor, I ask one thing,” Flores said. “Please ensure that the U.S. government understands that we are taking these conversations seriously and understands our position in this union. Your visit is appreciated, but promise to ensure our well-being, [and that] our homeland will not be used as a force field but as partners in support of peace for the world.”
Flores is also hoping that Cantor “paints an accurate picture of what the CNMI has become over the years and what the CNMI is today, a colonized territory of the U.S. of America.”
“My people, our founding fathers, designed and crafted this Covenant to ensure that the future of our Commonwealth is protected, not disposed of and taken advantage of,” Flores said. “These elements are the reason why these [902] discussions take place…. Today’s geopolitical climate places the CNMI in a vulnerable position, leaving the native people and all the people who call the CNMI home in grave uncertainty,” she said.
Flores said she understands what it means to her and her children’s future, “although I’m not sure or certain if the U.S. understands that.”
She said the “mothers, daughters, fathers and sons of our Commonwealth…must protect those in our communities. And we at the 23rd Legislature have been working tirelessly to address these issues and to improve system failures that create more barriers than accessibility and transparency.”
Flores said the CNMI needs help “with a district attorney’s office under the U.S. Department of Justice. I am not sure how many more conversations we need to have with them, but at this point, we have exhausted all remedies for any type of white-collar crime in the Commonwealth and this has to stop.”
Flores said the people believe “that we [in the Legislature] are not doing enough.”
She said the CNMI is trying to fix “systemic injustices.”
“We have to improve our systems, and with the help of Ms. Cantor, she can have that conversation,” Flores said.
“We need help under U.S. DOJ, to have our own district attorney to help us with this white-collar crime that keeps going on in the government. Our people need peace, our people need justice, our people need to finally turn the page and move on.”
