Immigration: Guam v. CNMI

Human smugglers who think the NMI is a good landing ground for purposes of securing political asylum are in for a big disappointment. The immigration provision in the Covenant demonstrates (insofar as illegal immigrants are concerned) that the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas controls its borders.

In the case of illegal Chinese on Tinian, their documents are under review for subsequent deportation to their home country. They are not refugees by any stretch of the imagination, but deportees for braving ignorance in their difficult flight to freedom aboard dilapidated ships.

The group who recently landed on the shores of Guam would eventually be released to the local community as dictated by way of instructions to the titular head of our southern neighbor from Washington. It is for this reason (lack of border control) that Guam has denied any further entry of illegal immigrants who hail from various provinces in China.

It’s interesting that Washington has the agility to instruct diversion of illegal Chinese to Tinian, an island three miles south of Saipan. But equally troublesome is the lack of federal funds to support such operations at Tent City on Tinian’s Northfield. The US Immigration and Naturalization Service isn’t funded to handle such emergency. It goes to show how a federal agency fumbles all over the place when it is underfunded from the outset to handle a situation that requires a huge sum in federal dollars.

As such, there are questions of whether local government expenditures can be reimbursed in the immediate future. Meanwhile, the scarce resources of the local government are being spent for medicine, security, per diem, hotels, airline tickets, etc. Washington needs to find the agility to fund this operation for it really bleeds the local treasury beyond the revenue collection that has contracted substantially over the last two years.

We’re happy though that the immigration provision in the Covenant works and that all who are engaged in the nasty and merciless venture of human smuggling would be dealt with accordingly by the federal court here. We hope the federal government doesn’t absolve itself of its responsibility to pay for these expenses. Our purse is empty and without our saying so, we need every penny reimbursed forthwith. Si Yuus Maase`!