THE Department of Labor and Immigration has confiscated the passports of six Chinese students who are supposed to take a U.S. examination for nurses.
The students are Amber Fei, 23; Shelly Sun, 19; Judy Liu, 22; Diana Chen, 20; Valerie Ni, 20; and Melissa Zhi, 21.
They are not allowed to take the National Council and Licensing Examination because the CNMI Board of Nursing Examiners is questioning the “background” of the school in Shanghai, China where they earned their nursing degree, according to Eucon International School President Christian Wei.
The women said they arrived here in August and were admitted under the exchange student program of Saipan.
They are enrolled in a review course in preparation for NCLEX. Each paid an initial $7,700 for their airfare, among other things.
They get their allowances from their families through Bank of Hawaii, but this requires that they present their passports.
The Immigration Division “confiscated” their passports upon their arrival, Variety was told.
“The problem is the students are in a very difficult situation. When I went to Immigration in December and explained to them the situation, they told me that the (students) are here but they are not here. So the students have no legal status. Their passports had been confiscated,” Wei said.
Immigration Director Antonio Sablan, in a separate interview, said the division’s action would depend on the decision by the State Board of Regents which is mandated to regulate all post-secondary institutions in the CNMI.
“A lot of what we do here, when it comes to that issue, depends on (the board),” Sablan said.
He said Eucon has to prove that it is recognized by the board as a legitimate post-secondary institution.
“As far as I know, the board recently revoked its license, so how can you deal with that when the board has stopped recognizing them as a college?” Sablan said.
The board revoked Eucon’s provisional license last March following a recommendation by a panel which found that the college’s nursing program did not comply with CNMI standards.
Wei said the board’s action was illegal and unfair.
Early this month, Eucon resubmitted its licensure application to the board.
According to Wei, Immigration officials told him that they couldn’t give the students any visa to legalize their status.
“How can you be here but you’re not here?” Wei said. “Somehow the government agency is violating the law. So now the students have no legal status. The students right now are very troubled. I’m afraid that those students may sue the government,” Wei said.
He said the students attempted to get a student visa when the State Board of Regents granted Eucon a provisional license to operate a college. But before they could do that, the board revoked the school’s license.
The students said their families in China are already worried about their situation.
“We just want the (CNMI government) to work more effectively. We hope we can take NCLEX,” one of the students said.
Wei said Eucon submitted all the necessary documents to the CNMI Board of Nursing Examiners to enable the students to take NCLEX—a prerequisite for foreign nurses who want to work in the U.S.
But Wei said the board wouldn’t even give the women a chance to take NCLEX.
“According to the board, they don’t know the nursing school that they graduated from—the Shanghai Second Medical University. We told them that this is one of the best medical universities in Shanghai. We already supplied them the information,” he said.
