{"id":128883,"date":"2008-12-15T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-15T21:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/b2bc50e3-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e"},"modified":"2008-12-15T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2008-12-15T21:44:00","slug":"b2bc50f4-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/b2bc50f4-1dfb-11e4-aedf-250bc8c9958e\/","title":{"rendered":"Torres eyes visa waiver for foreign students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The chairman of the House Committee on Health, Education, and Welfare is looking into the concerns of many foreign students on Saipan who will likely be affected by the implementation of federalization in the CNMI in June 2009.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview, Rep. Ralph DLG. Torres said yesterday that he is studying the possibility of proposing a visa waiver for students to address the issue of foreign students coming to the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmaker said the Legislature may request the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to consider the waiver for foreign students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s one thing that we\u2019re looking at and in fact that was brought to my attention over the weekend\u2014how the sponsorship applies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Torres said there is a possibility that foreign students who are currently studying at the Northern Marianas College, Public School Systems and other private schools may not continue their studies or may be released from schools after June 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Torres said the issue was brought to his attention by some NMC officials during the college\u2019s Christmas party last Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is entering Saipan\u2019s immigration, even if the [parents] can afford sponsorships,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re also looking into foreign investments. The students coming here are part of foreign investments. Currently, if you invest here, if you are a foreign investor, you can bring in your kids to go to school here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Torres noted that most of these investors are Koreans who come with their children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not certain as to what is the impact after June 1, if they are also considered,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The chairman of the House Committee on Health, Education, and Welfare is looking into the concerns of many foreign students on Saipan who will likely be affected by the implementation of federalization in the CNMI in June 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}