Federal immigration law will be extended to the islands beginning next year, and Domenech said the CNMI and the federal governments have already entered the “regulation writing mode.”
“We are now in the phase of implementing the new [federalization] law that was passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the president,” he said.
“We have been involved in Washington with all of the federal entities — Labor, Homeland Security, Defense and others — in trying to begin the process of writing those regulations and informing Congress how we are doing it and we’ve had some preliminary discussions here.”
During the news briefing shortly after the visiting federal officials met with the governor, Domenech told reporters that since Homeland Security is the lead agency in implementing federal immigration law here, Interior will follow its lead.
Certain regulations, however, must be drafted within 180 days, he said.
“It’s very fast-track,” he added. “We understand that there’s a labor and immigration team coming in a few weeks to the island to talk to the people here — the process is moving quickly.”
Nikolao Pula, the director of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, said U.S. congressional staffers want to know the situation in the CNMI following the signing of the federalization law, or P.L. 110-229.
“The oversight committee staff in the U.S. Congress wants to be briefed so is I think Justice, Labor, Homeland Security, Labor, Interior and so on,” Pula said.
“You can see it’s not as easy as we wanted it to be. I am sure Homeland Security folks have wanted to come down and meet with the folks here to discuss some of the issues and concerns but we have to coordinate things among these big and large agencies.”
He noted that the political climate in Washington D.C. is “volatile” due to the presidential campaign season.
“We have this election coming up. A new administration is coming in. We understand that certain regulations have to be written at a certain time to move ahead with the transition period,” said Pula.
He assured that federal officials will take time to explain to their local counterparts the immigration changes that will be implemented as well as their impact on the CNMI’s guest workers, which comprise the bulk of the private sector’s workforce.
Interior’s delegation first visited Hawaii and then Guam before heading to Saipan.
It is now headed to the Federated States of Micronesia.
