THE Chinese tourist and his 2-year-old daughter who were stranded for five days at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport arrived three days before the mother, a Customs Border Patrol official told Variety.
“Chinese nationals arriving under the Chinese Parole program must be in possession of a non-refundable, non-exchangeable return ticket. No one was holding or preventing the father and daughter from departing the CNMI,” said the CBP official, who declined to be identified.
“If they did not have a return ticket or for whatever reason canceled and refunded their return ticket, then it is at the fault of the airline who violated the agreement of the Chinese Parole Program,” the official added.
Xu Yuejun, 44, and his 2-year-old daughter Xu Ziyu arrived on Saipan at night on Saturday, March 9, on a T’Way Air flight from Hong Kong.
The two were “cleared” by CBP and were waiting in the airport’s arrival area when Xu was told that there was “something wrong” with the travel document of his wife, Cha Xiaomei, 27, and that it did not match her answers to CBP, which then denied her entry.
“We had proof that they were trying to circumvent immigration requirements,” said the CBP official, but declined to elaborate.
Xu said their money was in his wife’s possession. He and his daughter remained at the airport because he said he was hoping that CBP would eventually “clear” his wife. They were seen sleeping in the hallway by airport personnel, who provided them food. Xu’s daughter later developed a fever.
The father and his daughter left the island aboard a T’Way Air flight at 1:20 a.m., Friday, after getting help from Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Leo Tudela, who rented a hotel room for them and brought the child to the hospital.
The CBP official said although Tudela is the CPA executive director “he is not a representative of nor has any authority over Title 8.”
Title 8 of the United States Code pertains to, among other things, immigration, apprehension and inadmissibility.
Variety learned that CPA asked CBP about Xu and his wife, but was told that it was “confidential.”
