NMD Corp. to petition Congress

By Haidee V. Eugenio, Saipan Tribune
December 5, 2013

The Northern Marianas Descent Corp. Inc. is circulating a petition asking Congress to “reject” the inclusion in national immigration reform bills of any provision that would grant improved status to long-term legal aliens in the CNMI. The same immigration bills—S. 744 and H.R. 15—provide a pathway to citizenship to some 11 million undocumented aliens in America.

The Office of the Public Auditor, meanwhile, is investigating the alleged use of government resources in the circulation of the NMD Corp. petition.

Among the allegations is the faxing of a copy of the petition sent from the Office of Personnel Management and faxed during office hours.

NMD Corp.’s Danny Quitugua and Alvaro Santos, in an interview yesterday, said the CNMI provisions in both S. 744 and H.R. 15 provide a shortcut to permanent residency to aliens in the CNMI and will automatically deprive U.S. citizens—especially indigenous groups—of some 12,000 jobs that aliens will cling to once they apply for and are granted permanent residency or “green card.”

“Once they are granted permanent residency, they will cling to their jobs, and that will deprive U.S. citizens those jobs they hold. Then there’s political ramifications,” Santos told Saipan Tribune.

Under the CNMI-specific provisions in S. 744 and H.R. 15, there is no automatic and mass grant of permanent residency. Aliens have to “apply” for it.

Only those who have been legally in the CNMI since at least May 2003, which is 10 years ago, can apply for permanent residency five years after the bill is signed into law.

Quitugua and Santos said there’s only 12,000 “local population,” and once 12,000 or more are granted “green card,” then that would “further marginalize” the indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians in the CNMI.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) earlier said the “12,000 to 14,000” that the NMD Corp. is claiming is “too high.”

Sablan made sure that a CNMI provision is included in both U.S. Senate and U.S. House immigration reform bills.

Quitugua said they will be gathering signatures for the petition until Dec. 15.

“If Congress of the United States accedes to the inclusion of the CNMI in their comprehensive immigration reforms in both S. 744 and HR 15, it will be aiding and abetting in the total irreparable destruction of our ‘Living History,’ the speedy demise of our unique cultural and traditional identity and integrity as indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian people of [Northern Marianas descent], and the complete and permanent overthrow of our political control of our self-government in our cultural homeland,” the petition reads.

The petition also says that such action by Congress will result in “direct and willful violation and contravention of our fundamental right to local self-government that was agreed upon and guaranteed under Article 1, Section 103 of the Covenant.”

Sablan and Gov. Eloy S. Inos separately said earlier that the CNMI provision in S. 744 and HR 15 does not violate the Covenant between the U.S. and the Northern Marianas.

“If it violates the Covenant, then Public Law 110-229 will be ruled as void and it’s not. So if they have issues, don’t blame Kilili. If you have anything to blame, blame history, the history where 78 percent of the people approved the Covenant in a plebiscite,” Sablan said.

He said the issue of immigration “was settled in 1975 when the people approved the Covenant.”

The NMD Corp. said that, unlike the continental United States, the CNMI is not a nation of immigrants but an island community of small homogenous ethnicity, culturally rooted in traditional heritage.

The group also said the Chamorros and Carolinians “may be in imminent danger of becoming extinct as indigenous peoples of the CNMI.”

They added that the CNMI-specific provision “was made without consultation” and “against” the consent of indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians.

“We hereby respectfully appeal to members of the Senate and House in the Congress of the United States to reject and disapprove any inclusion of the CNMI in S. 744 and H.R. 15, or any subsequent U.S. immigration legislation attempting to grant improved immigration status to foreign aliens in the CNMI with pathway to citizenship,” the petitioners say.

They added that the indigenous Chamorros and Carolinians “fully support the cutoff date,” referring to the end of the transitional period on Dec. 31, 2014, when alien workers need to exit the CNMI.

The CNMI government, business community and other sectors, however, have been asking for an extension of the CW worker program beyond 2014 because there is still not enough U.S. workers to fill the jobs held by foreign workers, who are mostly from Asia.

This NMD Corp. petition addressed to Congress is separate from another petition it addressed to CNMI lawmakers, asking them to introduce a joint resolution to also oppose the CNMI provision in S. 744 and H.R. 15.

The previous petition gathered 2,523 signatures, Quitugua said. These include 2,054 signatures from Saipan, 261 from Rota, and 208 from Tinian.

This also comes after the CNMI House adopted Rep. Felicidad Ogumoro’s (R-Saipan) House resolution asking Congress to eliminate the CNMI provision in national immigration reform bills.