Responding to Fitial’s questioning her “authority” to tell unemployed nonresidents to remain in the CNMI after Nov. 27, US Pinoys for Good Governance Chairwoman Loida Nicolas Lewis said she was “sorry” to know that the governor may have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution “provides that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”
“As a general attorney of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now called Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for many years, I know that the governor is mistaken when he was quoted to have said that overstaying aliens can be deported right away,” Lewis said.
She told Variety, “Every person has the right to the due process of law, and ICE, with whom the governor says he is working with, would have told him that ICE cannot just pick him up and put him on the plane back to his country without ‘the due process of law.’ ”
Lewis said ICE would have told the governor that each alien who is out of legal status would be issued a notice to appear before an immigration court indicating the date and the hour and the place.
“The alien has to appear on the said date to explain why he [or she] should not be ordered by the immigration judge deported to his own country.”
Lewis said the alien can submit proofs of his “equities” like a spouse, or children, or parents who are U.S. citizens, or living and working in the CNMI for more than 10 years without any criminal record, paying income taxes every year among other things, she added.
“Only after the hearing and the judge decides that the alien has no ‘equities’ to remain in the U.S., then the judge orders him or her deported,” Lewis said.
The alien, however, can still file an appeal.
“That is the ‘due process of law’ that is the bedrock of democracy in the United States of America. I hate to conclude that the governor probably thinks CNMI is above the law and is not part of this great nation.”
