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Senate wants Willens to explain ‘stateless’ issue
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Posted on Oct 18 2004
The Senate intends to call in Covenant expert Howard Willens to explain the ramifications of a recent Ninth Circuit ruling granting U.S. citizenship to “stateless” individuals.
“It has an impact on the Covenant. We need to hear and be educated on the significance of the court ruling in connection with the Covenant,” said Senate minority leader Pete P. Reyes.
The senator said he will soon introduce a resolution requesting Willens to speak on the issue before the Legislature.
“Maybe the governor [and] lieutenant governor should also be here so we can all be educated,” Reyes said.
This developed after Willens, who was counsel for the Mariana Political Status Commission that represented the islands in the Covenant negotiation with the United States, spoke in last month’s Saipan Chamber of Commerce meeting, saying that the so-called stateless persons in the Commonwealth are not U.S. citizens “based on the provisions of the Covenant.”
Willens noted the difference between the Commonwealth and the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.
He said that U.S. citizenship for those born in the islands did not come into effect until the termination of the trusteeship in 1986.
“TTPI citizenship is different from CNMI [U.S.] citizenship,” he said.
Willens said the federal appellate court decision affirming the U.S. citizenship of the stateless persons—or those born in the Northern Marianas between Jan. 9, 1978 to Nov. 3, 1986, the intervening period between the adoption of the Covenant and its ratification—is a “misinterpretation of the Covenant.”
