President Donald Trump has signed CNMI Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan’s bill giving Marianas-only permanent resident status to as many as 1,039 people now living in the commonwealth.
According to Sablan, he received a call from the White House informing him the President had signed into law H.R. 559, the Northern Mariana Islands Long-Term Legal Residents Relief Act.
As of December 14, 2018, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services there were 1,039 individuals living in the Marianas under humanitarian parole, who could qualify for the new permanent status.
These include over 800 spouses and parents of U.S. citizens, 50 in-home caregivers, 5 persons born in the Marianas before the Covenant citizenship provisions went into effect, and persons who had been given permanent resident status under Commonwealth law in the early 1980s.
Sablan said these people would have been forced to leave their home in the Marianas on June 29 if Sablan his bill had not been signed into law.
“I want to thank the President for signing my bill into law. This was the final step in a long, long process that began with introduction of the bill on January 15,” Sablan said in a statement.
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