By Bryan Manabat
[email protected]
Variety News Staff
LORNA Maramba was arrested after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers caught her using two falsified permanent resident cards to travel from the CNMI to Hawaii, according to a federal complaint unsealed last week.
Maramba is charged with one count of possessing “an identification document or a false identification document with the intent to defraud the United States,” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(4).
She was formally charged and arrested on Jan. 27 and appeared before Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI for her initial hearing on Jan. 28 while in U.S. Marshals Service custody.
At the request of Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric O’Malley, a detention hearing was held on Jan. 30. Judge Manglona allowed Maramba to be released on a $1,000 unsecured bond and imposed additional conditions of release. She was represented by court-appointed defense attorney Richard Miller.
According to an affidavit filed by Homeland Security Investigations, Maramba, a Philippine national, was stopped at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport on Jan. 21 after CBP officers reported that she presented two fraudulent permanent resident cards during an outbound inspection.
Officers said Maramba initially claimed she was a lawful permanent resident and presented two laminated cards — one black-and-white and one in color — each containing different biographical information, mismatched USCIS numbers, and distorted or blurred images. Record checks showed she had no legal immigration status and had overstayed her last CNMI-Only Transitional Worker visa, which expired in 2020.
The affidavit states that Maramba later admitted the cards were fake and said she paid $2,000 to a man she met on Facebook who claimed to be a U.S. immigration officer. She told investigators she hoped to travel to Hawaii to find work and acknowledged she was unlawfully present in the CNMI.
Maramba also told investigators she was an accountant and had previously prepared her own CW-1 applications. She said she sought work in Hawaii because of the difficulty of finding employment on Saipan.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 11 at 1:30 p.m.
Bryan Manabat was a liberal arts student of Northern Marianas College where he also studied criminal justice. He is the recipient of the NMI Humanities Award as an Outstanding Teacher (Non-Classroom) in 2013, and has worked for the CNMI Motheread/Fatheread Literacy Program as lead facilitator.
