Another wants to be involved

A lawyer for a local resident has filed a brief seeking to join the federalization lawsuit.

In the brief filed by e-mail Wednesday to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge Paul L. Friedman, lawyer Bruce L. Jorgensen said CNMI resident Celina Tilipao Mettao Setefano questions the validity of the group CNMI Descents for Self-Governance and Indigenous Rights. The group has joined the CNMI in suing the U.S. government to halt the implementation of federal immigration laws to the CNMI.

The first hearing on the matter was scheduled for yesterday morning Washington D.C. time (yesterday evening CNMI time).

Despite the CNMI Descent’s argument that federalization violates the right to self-government as stipulated by the Covenant agreement between the Commonwealth and the United States, Setefano maintains that many locals and non-locals support Public Law 110-229 or the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008.

“[P]ersons of NMI descent and of non-NMI descent, including both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens, resoundingly support, laud, and are collectively relieved by, the recently enacted federal statutory provisions by which the U.S. government has finally come to the aid of the CNMI general populace,” according to the brief.

Setefano, when reached by telephone yesterday, said the local government is focused on helping other people, not CNMI residents.

“[They are] taking care of other people, rather than the island people, the islanders,” she said.

When asked why she supports federalization, Setefano alluded to benefits granted to a select few.

“They live in a very nice place, hotel, motel, very nice houses, paid for by Housing. They don’t want to go out there and work. And then they expect the local people to find a job and it’s very hard to find a job nowadays,” she said, adding that she knows people who pay $100 per month for housing.

“And they don’t do anything. They just sit around, and us locals ask for help and they tell us to find a job,” she said.

In the brief, Jorgensen wrote that Setefano and the general public did not learn until Saturday that the CNMI Descent group was granted the right to participate in the lawsuit.

Friedman granted the group the right to participate in the lawsuit, but denied its request to present oral arguments at the hearing.

Setefano also questions the group’s numbers.

“Ms. Setefano, like many others, questions the validity of the recent contention by which DSGIR purports to include ‘approximately 4,100 persons’ as members, as well as the methodology—if any beyond mere speculation—upon which this 4,100 number was ascertained, and the motivations underlying DSGIR conception/participation here,” the brief stated.

Setefano called Honolulu-based lawyer Jorgensen to represent her. Jorgensen noted that as a former resident of the Commonwealth he has many years of experience with issues relating to the CNMI. He served as law clerk from 1989 to 2001 for Alex R. Munson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, and subsequently practiced law in the U.S. Court on Saipan and in other Pacific Rim locations.

Because Jorgensen will be in Delaware on unrelated business during the hearing, Setefano has asked him to appear on behalf of her, the brief stated.