Teodoro “Ted” Laguatan, spokesman of U.S. Pinoys for Good Governance said, “Every day, hundreds of people appear in U.S. immigration courts who have violated immigration laws because they overstayed, worked illegally, violated some technicality or committed some crime. The U.S. Constitution guarantees them the right to a hearing, the right to counsel and the right to present defenses and various kinds of applications for relief provided for by statutes and case law.”
For Laguatan, these democratic rights, “are sacred, inalienable and the backbone of our nation.”
He said nonresidents who have contributed to the culture and economy of the Northern Mariana Islands for many years have these same constitutional rights because these islands are a part of the United States. “Many of them have U.S. citizen children,” he noted.
The Filipino-American lawyer, who has been practicing immigration law for over 20 years, said the president of the United States, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and immigration judges respect these rights.
But in the Northern Marianas, Laguatan said the governor apparently does not.
“In his world, when one loses his job — these constitutional rights should not apply.”
