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Get married faster with new Immigration system
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Posted on Apr 11 2006
Division of Immigration director Melvin Grey has reduced the agency’s workload, making it now faster to process marriage licenses in the Commonwealth.
Grey, in an interview with the Saipan Tribune, said that people planning to get married used to be required to go to the Immigration Office, so that the office could review the files to see if the aliens are already married or not.
“Well, it is not an Immigration issue until people apply for benefits based on that marriage. So I stopped that review. We don’t do that anymore,” he said.
Eliminating such Immigration task, he pointed out, makes it easier for people to get married quicker.
“It helps the licensing bureau with one less task they have to deal with. So we speed it up. They [customers] don’t have a couple of days of delay in going back and forth,” Grey said.
He said this would also entice tourists to get married in the CNMI when they figure out it does not take them two to three days to get all the paperwork done.
A few days after he assumed office, Grey implemented a system that makes it easier for tourists to process their papers for an extension of their stay in the CNMI. He also started implementing a one-stop system for government services within the Immigration Office in San Antonio.
Grey was responsible for sprucing up the Immigration Office in San Antonio with the government not spending a penny for the improvements.
He also plans to improve the condition of the Immigration’s office at the Saipan International, which he described as “deplorable” and needs sprucing up to provide a professional business setting.
