‘Stateless’ lawyer: We should have won it in district court

From the beginning, lawyer Reynaldo O. Yana said he knew that the “stateless” persons’ case would prevail. In fact, he said the case should have been won much earlier in the U.S. District Court.

“We should have even won at the district court. I don’t know why we lost at the district court when the law is very, very clear,” said Yana in an interview Friday.

District Court judge Alex Munson had denied the petition of 28 stateless persons for U.S. citizenship. Two of the 28 petitioners—Jacinto Sabangan and Esther Sheon—appealed the decision at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last July, the Circuit Court effectively reversed Munson’s ruling, citing that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which recognizes that anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, applies to the CNMI effective Jan. 9, 1978 onwards.

The Appeals Court’s decision, which favors the granting of U.S. citizenship to hundreds of stateless individuals in the CNMI, took effect last week after the federal government decided not to appeal it.

“That’s why I can’t understand some people from the Legislature who said that the 9th Circuit was wrong, when the law is very clear. It clearly says there that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applies in the CNMI,” said Yana.

He said that the decision is “consistent with the Covenant,” contrary to what some people believe.

“Some people are trying to pretend that they’re defending the Covenant when they are actually destroying the Covenant because the citizenship clause protects all citizens of the United States. It protects me, and everyone born here. They are all protected,” he said.

The lawyer said he is aware that some 800 persons in the community had signed a petition that essentially opposed the granting of citizenship to the stateless individuals “in the name of the Covenant.”

“Their only reason for that is these kids became citizens before they did. And they didn’t like it. There is a question of pride there. There’s just pride and prejudice that some people got their citizenship ahead of them, but they didn’t realize that everybody became citizens at the same time,” said Yana.

Yana, a resident of the Northern Marianas prior to the Covenant signing, said “we all had rights to U.S. citizenship beginning Jan. 9, 1978.”

“Nobody was ahead, nobody was behind. But these kids were behind because their citizenship was not recognized by the federal government or even by the local government until the 9th Circuit Court made the decision,” he said.

The 14th Amendment, he said, intends to protect the citizenship of all U.S. citizens. Through it, he said, Congress cannot pass a law that would strip away anyone’s citizenship.

In effect, he said, “Congress is barred by the 14th amendment to pass a law that takes away the citizenship of anyone born in the CNMI or anyone who became a U.S. citizen in the CNMI.”

He said this has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in two or three cases that he has researched. “It’s very important that people realize that the citizenship clause is not just for those born here in 1978. It’s for everybody,” he said.

Yana said the victory of the stateless persons “is a victory for everybody.”

The 9th Circuit’s decision, he said, only acknowledges that “citizenship is protected.”

Yana believes that the Department of Justice’s decision not to appeal the case was primarily due to the merit of the case.

Without touching on the letter of Gov. Juan N. Babauta who appealed to the federal government not to appeal the decision, he said the DOJ must have primarily looked at the decision, the briefs, and all the arguments.

“Right from the very beginning, I knew the case is strong. Their only resort was to delay it,” he said.