Up to 1,039 saved from deportation

Statement

President Donald Trump has signed my bill giving Marianas-only permanent resident status to as many as 1,039 people now living in the islands. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi enrolled H.R. 559 and Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson reported mid-afternoon on Tuesday that she had presented it to the President. By 7 p.m. that evening the White House called confirming the Northern Mariana Islands Long-Term Legal Residents Relief Act was now Public Law 116-24. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 1,039 individuals living in the Marianas under humanitarian parole could qualify for the new permanent status. They would have been forced to leave the Marianas, if my bill had not been enacted. USCIS told me there were over 800 spouses and parents of U.S. citizens with humanitarian parole as of December 14, 2018. And 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 could also get the new permanent status. I am very grateful to those in the Marianas, in the federal government, and here in Congress, who helped make this success possible.

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