Board of Education member Marja Lee Taitano now holds an American passport.
Taitano yesterday said she received her passport from the CNMI Passport Office.
“When the U.S. Passport Office issued my passport, (it was) based on the CNMI Covenant (and) on that moment they avowed my being a U.S. citizen,” Taitano told Variety.
The U.S. Passport Office issued the passport last March.
“I became a U.S. citizen as did all who were either born or domiciled in the (Northern Marianas) prior to Jan. 1, 1974 through Nov. 4, 1986,” Taitano said.
During a March 14 Election Commission hearing on her citizenship, Assistant Attorney General Allan L. Dollison, alleged that Taitano lied when she signed a document in 1973 stating that she was a U.S. citizen.
Dollison said Taitano wrote in her teaching application job on June 29, 1973 that she was an American. He added that there was no proof that Taitano was a U.S. citizen at the time.
The outcome of the hearing will determine Taitano’s fate on the Board of Education.
Dollison yesterday said they had been informed about Taitano’s U.S. passport.
“It was brought to our attention by Taitano herself,” Dollison told Variety.
He said he had submitted his position on the issue to the hearing officer, James Philips, who will decide whether Taitano is qualified to be on the Board of Education.
Taitano’s lawyer, Reynaldo Yana, said the issuance of the passport would “put an end” to the question of her client’s citizenship.
During the hearing last March, Yana said his client had been “stateless.” He said Taitano’s Polish parents were arrested during World War II and brought to labor camps in Germany.
After the war, Taitano’s family moved to the U.S. and were classified as “displaced persons,” Yana said.
In 1972, she was a student at the University of Hawaii, where she met some education officials from the Northern Marianas, who eventually recruited her to teach on Saipan. She began working here in 1973. In 1979, she got married to her husband who is from Rota.
BOE Chairman Herman T. Guerrero said Taitano’s passport serves as an “acknowledgment” of her citizenship.
Taitano represents Rota on the Board of Education. She was first elected in 1995 and was re-elected in 1999.
The issue on her citizenship surfaced after the CNMI Passport Office revealed late last year that Taitano was a permanent resident of the U.S. and not an American citizen.
Under the election code, a BOE candidate must be a registered voter, a CNMI resident for at least five years, and a U.S. citizen.
