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Amended immigration law calls for neutral magistrate
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Posted on Aug 20 2005
Local authorities have finally amended the CNMI immigration law about six years after the U.S. District Court declared portions of it unconstitutional.
Gov. Juan N. Babauta signed into law Senate Bill 14-89, which aims to amend sections 4381 and 4442 of Title 3 of the Commonwealth Code. These sections relate to the procedures and guidelines for the detection of illegal aliens and had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. District Court in 2000.
The court said that the provisions are “irreconcilable with the CNMI Constitution and the U.S.”
The measure, authored by Senator Paterno Hocog, sets new procedures for immigration officers to detect and apprehend illegal aliens and for labor officers to enter any facility where suspected illegal aliens are purportedly present.
“These new law procedures are in compliance with the Commonwealth and U.S. Constitutions,” said Babauta in an Aug. 15 transmittal letter to the Legislature.
This is accomplished, he said, “by mandating that the use of these procedures, except in limited circumstances, will be reviewed by an independent and neutral magistrate.”
Babauta said the enactment of the law is timely as the Commonwealth is faced with the potential closure of garment factories and the need to repatriate former garment workers.
He said that, although most workers are repatriated in accordance with the terms of their employer agreements, the new measure will empower enforcement officers with the necessary means to detect, detain, and repatriate any illegal nonresident workers.
Under Hocog’s bill, an immigration officer may interrogate a suspicious alien but it should be brief and it shall not constitute an arrest. The person interrogated may refuse to answer.
The officer shall have authority to conduct a warrant-less search at the immigration inspection counter or port of entry provided that the officer has probable cause to suspect that the search would lead to the exclusion of that person.
The bill says an immigration officer may arrest without warrant any alien, who, in the officer’s view, is entering or attempting to enter the CNMI in violation of any law or regulation.
The bill becomes Public Law 14-84.
