‘Right to due process is bedrock of democracy’

In a stinging rebuke to critics, former Immigration and Naturalization Service general attorney Loida Nicolas Lewis said that her advice to jobless aliens who will lose status after the Nov. 27, 2011, deadline for umbrella permits is not her own opinion but is a provision of the U.S. Constitution.

“Each of the workers affected by the deadline has the right to due process-a right to have his/her day in court. In this case, the Immigration Court. It is not my opinion; ‘due process of law’ is the bedrock of democracy in this great nation,” said Lewis in an email to the Saipan Tribune.

On Wednesday, press secretary Angel Demapan downplayed Lewis’ advice to jobless foreign workers fearing deportation after Nov. 27, saying that they “should distinguish the underlying difference between a matter of law and a matter of personal opinion.”

Lewis, in an interview with radio station KWAW Magic 100.3 FM on Tuesday, said that jobless foreign workers should tell an immigration judge their “equities,” including having U.S. citizen children-especially if they are in the U.S. military.

“Press secretary Angel Demapan seems uninformed that what I said during the radio interview was not an opinion but was a provision of the Constitution of the United States: ‘No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.’ Unless, of course, Mr. Demapan believes the CNMI is not part of the United States of America,” said Lewis, who is also chair of the U.S. Pinoys for Good Governance.

She also had fighting words for Rep. Ramon A. Tebuteb (R-Saipan), who had said that perhaps Lewis was just trying to drum up business.

“I have not represented a single client but the U.S. government since 1978 when I became a general attorney of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. To jump to a hasty conclusion that I was seeking clients during my radio interview is the most ignorant argument I have ever heard,” she said.

Lewis is considered one of the richest Filipino-Americans and has been named the top U.S. woman business executive by The National Foundation for Women Business Owners and Working Woman magazine.

No comment

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement refused to comment on Lewis’ remarks and Western Regional Communications director/spokesperson Virginia Kice re-sent a statement the agency gave the Saipan Tribune recently.

“ICE does not disclose whether it will conduct specific law enforcement actions in the future. That said, the agency is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes efforts to target those who present a risk to public safety or national security, along with criminal aliens and egregious immigration violators,” it stated.

Mind of their own

For her part, longtime human rights advocate and former Rota teacher Wendy Doromal criticized Demapan in her blog for seemingly trying to tell alien workers who and what they should believe.

“The foreign workers are free to believe the opinions of any person of their choice. That is their right. Why does Demapan feel the need to tell the foreign workers who to listen to or who to believe for whatever circumstance at issue? The foreign workers are educated adults who can research, sort out facts, and make their own opinions,” she said in her website, www.unheardnomore.blogspot.com.

“The foreign workers can make their own choices. If they want to stay after Nov. 27, 2011, even if they have no employer or visa, then that is their decision. If they want to leave to find jobs elsewhere, then that is their decision. If they want to sue the CNMI government for failing to prosecute employers who owe them back wages, then that is their decision. If they want to march, rally, picket, petition, strike, contact officials, or talk to the press, then that is their decision. Not Demapan’s, not the governor’s, not mine-theirs,” she added.