Labor started recording departures in 2002

Monday, 26 January 2009 00:00 By Junhan B. Todeno - Variety News Staff
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THE Department of Labor says it was only in early 2002 when it started collecting of departure data in light of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The CNMI Immigration Division increased its capability in 2002, Labor Deputy Secretary Cinta Kaipat said, and by 2003 all departures were being recorded.

Prior to this, and way back after World War II and before 1978 when the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands operated the immigration system in the Northern Marianas, no departure records were kept but immigration entry records were kept as paper records, Kaipat stated in her interim progress report to the Legislature.

Kaipat said in early 1999, when the CNMI created the Labor and Immigration Identification and Documentation System, it didn’t have a comprehensive arrival and departure module that would track all individuals entering and departing the commonwealth.

She said LIIDS was able to store biographic and contract data of foreign workers but its early versions did not have a module to track all persons coming in and out from the island.

When the commonwealth government started operating the existing immigration system in 1978, it still maintained the Trust Territory system of paper immigration record, Kaipat said.

Some of those paper records are in the commonwealth archives, but “none are in active file,” she added.

After 1983 when the commonwealth changed its immigration laws, records of foreign workers were stored in the Wang VS5 system of the then-Department of Commerce and Labor.

“Those data have been preserved,” Kaipat said.

But the manner of keeping the records on entries and exits was not changed even after the termination of the Trusteeship in Nov. 1986, she added.

By 1997, Kaipat said, Labor had reduced the immigration processing delays when the influx of tourists reached 725,000 visitors annually.

In 2001, the Border Management System came online.

The system controls entry and exit of all persons, including tourists, foreign workers and U.S. citizens, Kaipat said.

However, she added, when the system was first brought online, it was used to record entries to the commonwealth only and not exits as was the practice in the U.S.