The issue on \u2018stateless children\u2019 in the CNMI is being addressed from all fronts and beyond party lines, resulting so far in a more favorable and \u201cpositive reception\u201d in Washington D.C., according to the House leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a non-partisan issue,\u201d said House leadership spokesman Charles Reyes yesterday, citing reports that the issue\u2019s presentation by the administration was well-received in Washington D.C.<\/p>\n
Gov. Juan N. Babauta, who flew to D.C. over the weekend, hand-carried a verified list of CNMI \u201cstateless children\u201d to Indiana Rep. Dan Burton, who has pledged his support by introducing a bill that seeks to grant the group U.S. citizenship.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve received information that there\u2019s a positive reception [by federal authorities],\u201d Reyes said.<\/p>\n
He said the governor has acknowledged House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial\u2019s role in getting support for the \u201cstateless children.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe speaker has been actively involved here such as getting hold of people to help us lobby in the U.S. Congress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Both the Governor\u2019s Office and the Legislature initiated a registration process for \u201cstateless\u201d individuals for submission to Congress.<\/p>\n
There are some 200 \u201cstateless\u201d individuals in the Northern Marianas. <\/p>\n
Burton, chairman of House Sub-Committee on Human Rights, Welfare and Wellness, earlier asked for a comprehensive and accurate list of qualified individuals to be included in his proposed legislation.<\/p>\n
Individuals who are considered “stateless persons” are those who were born and raised in the Commonwealth between Jan. 1, 1974, and Nov. 4, 1986, who were born to non-U.S. citizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The issue on \u2018stateless children\u2019 in the CNMI is being addressed from all fronts and beyond party lines, resulting so far in a more favorable and \u201cpositive reception\u201d in Washington D.C., according to the House leadership.<\/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-81633","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\/81633","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=81633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}