‘Get your US passports now’

Gov. Juan N. Babauta is urging the so-called “stateless” persons in the CNMI to apply and get their U.S. passports now following the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling re-affirming that they are U.S. citizens.

“The governor strongly encourages those persons born in the CNMI from that period [Jan. 9, 1978] to apply now and get their U.S. passports [from the U.S. Passport Office],” said assistant attorney general James Livingstone yesterday.

He said the governor will be releasing an order to the Passport Office to expedite the processing of the applications as well as to other government agencies, including the CNMI Scholarship Office, to recognize the “stateless” persons as U.S. citizens from now on.

About 11 persons under the category have been awarded scholarship grants but the funds due them were recently withheld following the appeal of the decision.

“Once they get their U.S. passports, they are entitled to all benefits and rights due a U.S. citizen such as voting rights and scholarship grants,” said governor press secretary Pete Callaghan.

Babauta met with the AGO yesterday morning to discuss the issue.

Callaghan said that the covered year is 1978 onwards because it was the year when the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution came into effect in the CNMI. That amendment provides that “anyone born in the U.S. automatically becomes U.S. citizens.”

“There are 200 to 300 adults now affected by that ruling,” said Callaghan.

He said the Ninth Circuit review panel, which “automatically” reviewed the July 2004 decision completed its finding last week, affirming the earlier ruling.

The Department of Justice, meantime, has 90 days to appeal the ruling. But Callaghan said there is a slim chance that the DOJ would appeal the decision.

Should it go ahead, he said it would also be “rare” that the Supreme Court would overrule the Ninth Circuit decision. “The odds are very low,” he said.

So the chances of the “stateless” person getting U.S. citizens “look very good.”

Babauta has asked the U.S. Department of Justice not to appeal any longer the court’s decision.

Livingstone said the court decision remains in effect until a federal decision, if any, is made against it.

“Ultimately, it’s the federal government’s decision but we’re hoping that the federal [government] would not stop it. That’s why the governor has formally asked DOJ not to appeal it,” said Livingstone.

As for now, he said, “all CNMI agencies need to respect the court’s decision,” recognizing the “stateless” persons as U.S. citizens.

Ninth Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, in his decision on July 1, 2004, said that both the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S.-CNMI Covenant Sections 301 and 501 state that provisions are applicable within the Northern Mariana Islands.

The ruling, however, would leave children born to alien parents in the CNMI between the dates Jan. 1, 1974 and Jan. 8, 1978—more than 20 individuals—still “stateless.”

Noonan said that it is not the Constitution alone but the act of Congress applying Section 1 of the 14th Amendment that makes the “stateless children” citizens of the United States.

Babauta, in an earlier letter to U.S. DOJ, said that the stateless persons’ political and immigration status unintentionally resulted from their birth in the Northern Marianas between Jan. 1, 1974 to Nov. 4, 1986—the intervening period between the adoption of the Covenant and its ratification.

“I request the US DOJ [Department of Justice] to refrain from appealing…because the substantive basis of the [Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s] decision is firm and because the class of individuals affected by this decision…is a definite, fixed number that cannot increase or decrease and is estimated to be no more than 300 individuals,” Babauta said.

Earlier, lawyer Reynaldo O. Yana, who has been handling the children’s case, said that, if the decision is upheld by the U.S. District Court, all children born between Jan. 9, 1978 and Nov. 3, 1986 would automatically become U.S. citizens even without a congressional decision.