Former Senate legal counsel Steve Woodruff, in a statement, said the ombudsman’s office is likely to share whatever information it will gather from registering all guest workers in the CNMI with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security whose agency, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is empowered to arrest illegal aliens.
Woodruff said registration with the ombudsman is not mandatory.
He noted that the ombudsman’s office “allowed the names of purported overstayers to be published in the newspapers.”
He said the ombudsman’s office may be preparing “a bait to lure alien workers.”
“If you are an alien in the CNMI and do not have an umbrella permit in your possession, my advice is do not go to the ombudsman’s office and register. Again, do not go to the ombudsman’s office and register unless you have an umbrella permit,” he said.
“Instead, go see a competent attorney. Visit Micronesian Legal Services or any private lawyer on the island,” he added.
The ombudsman has issued a public announcement inviting all foreign workers in the CNMI to register with the office.
The registration form seeks information about an alien worker’s date of first entry in the CNMI, his or her occupation, among other things.
The notice stated that the U.S. Department of the Interior is mandated to make recommendations to the U.S. Congress about the status of long-term guest workers on the islands.
According to Woodruff, however, “the ombudsman’s rushed registration venture is a particularly inefficient and unreliable means of getting a handle on ‘the number of aliens residing in the commonwealth.’ It is also unnecessary for this purpose. There already is information on this subject — and there is a real census (which will provide actual, genuinely reliable data) soon to be conducted.”
He added, “The ombudsman’s venture will provide absolutely no information whatsoever on the legal status under federal law of aliens registering. Instead, it asks them for information on their CNMI status and to confess to being overstayers ‘if applicable.’ ”
He said if the ombudsman’s office “were truly working to produce a report that would lead to improved status for long-term alien residents of the CNMI, it would collect the kind of information that is persuasive in supporting improved status. It is not [doing that].”
The registration, he added, will be a “logistical nightmare.”
Supposing “30,000 people [will] register with [the] office in the space of 10 working days. That is more than five people every minute having to park at the Marianas Heights II building, go all the way up to the second floor by way of the stairs or the elevator, and be processed through an office with a reception area of less than 90 square feet and only about 4 feet of counter space. Brilliant plan.”
