The CNMI Scholarship Office has put on hold the distribution of Educational Assistance Program checks to stateless students enrolled at the Northern Marianas College, based on instructions from the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Randy Mendoza, a stateless individual and spokesperson of the group, said that when they went to the Scholarship Office to pick up their checks, the Office informed them that it cannot issue their EAP scholarship checks until further notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that the Scholarship Office\u2019s decision to hold all of the stateless EAP checks is unfair,\u201d said Mendoza. \u201cThe office had given us an award letter stating that we are eligible to receive the scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Scholarship Office had accepted the applications of some 20 students shortly after Ninth Circuit judge John T. Noonan declared them U.S. citizens under the U.S. Constitution. <\/p>\n
Scholarship Office chair Roman Benavente was reportedly informed by the Attorney General\u2019s Office to hold the checks until the pending appeal of the recent ruling of the Ninth Circuit is finalized, said Mendoza. <\/p>\n
He said the stateless students are depending on the scholarship award to pay for their Fall 2004 tuition and fees. <\/p>\n
According to Mendoza, the newly enrolled stateless students in NMC that applied for the CNMI scholarship graduated with high honors. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany of these students are highly dependent on the scholarship; some of them have thought of quitting their jobs to focus on their education and maintain their GPA,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard that the checks were out, so I went there to pick it up. They told me that I\u2019m not on the list because they\u2019re holding my check. No one told me this before I went there,\u201d said stateless student Nanette. \u201cIt\u2019s confusing, I guess for now I\u2019m going to have to pay on my own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholarship Office administrator Melissa Guajardo said the students would later be informed whether they would be granted the EAP checks. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe were told by our legal counsels to hold the checks until further notice. We will inform the students by writing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
“Stateless persons” are those who were born and raised in the Commonwealth between Jan. 1, 1974, and Nov. 4, 1986, who are not U.S. citizens. They are not U.S. citizens due to the fact that Section 301(c) of the Covenant only granted U.S. citizenship to those who were domiciled continuously in the Northern Mariana Islands beginning prior to Jan. 1, 1974 and continuing through Nov. 4, 1986.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CNMI Scholarship Office has put on hold the distribution of Educational Assistance Program checks to stateless students enrolled at the Northern Marianas College, based on instructions from the Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/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-83928","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\/83928","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=83928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}