AG-elect Douglas Moylan’s says that his issue with non us citizens within Guam’s prison systems is how they are using taxpayer dollars, along with the Judicial’s and AG’s time.
Saying that it takes time and resources to prosecute and deal with them.
The AG elect says that Guam is facing problems in education and health care due to FSM citizens’ impact on the island. However, Moylan argues that the island’s biggest problem is how law enforcement is affecting the community’s safety.
Moylan says that the current commutation the Attorney General’s office has when it comes to sentencing non-U.S. Citizens include – lowering the sentence of the person serving on Guam in order for them to get out of the Department of Corrections then they are taken to the airport on a one-way trip back to their country.
In an interview on Newstalk K57, Moylan went into detail on how he plans to tackle the issue, “We’re going to use the brain trust at the AG’s office to come up with even better ideas, but my idea right now as a defense lawyer and seeing it is it can be crafted into plea agreements, even if there’s a judgment we can petition the judge to modify it in order to have this person deported.”
He emphasizes that the primary goal of his office is although he understands that there is an element of punishment victims want, he wants to focus on getting these people off of Guam and prevent them from entering the United States again.
Additionally, Moylan says that he would like to reach out to the government in the FSM to deal with the criminals coming into Guam without proper documentation because immigration is an international standard that the department of state and every other federal government agency wants to ensure it’s done properly.
He says, “Reaching out to the FSM government, our island neighbor, and working with them to identify these people because I’m sure there are going to be problems back where they came from and their government is also law abiding and wants to make sure that they track these people.”
In response to the question of whether or not the returning inmate will continue the rest of his sentence once back in his homeland, Moylan had this to say.
“We can discuss it with their government but that is like the U.S. enforcing a rush of a type of sentence. They have sovereignty over their own people. We can let them know what our local government, the U.S. government has indicated that this person should be punished under our laws, but usually, it’s up to them to decide what they want to do with their own citizens when that citizen comes back.”
Furthermore, in terms of being able to afford this type of action, Moylan argues that the price to get them off the island is more cost-efficient than using funds to pay for a prosecutor’s time as well as the judge’s time, DOC cost, daily incarceration cost required of them, and the possibility of building a bigger prison if Guam continues to house non-U.S. citizen criminals.
With Attorney General Elect Douglas Moylan taking office this coming January, he would like to invite the Governor and Lieutenant Governor to join the team over at AG’s office to work together in order to protect the community in his goals to tackle the crime on Guam and everything that follows.
Contact Althea Engman | E-mail: althea@spbguam.com | Phone: 671-477-0790
