Kaipat says feds don’t know how many tourists didn’t exit NMI
Wednesday, March 24 2010 00:00 By Gemma Q. Casas - Reporter
E-mail Print

A LOCAL official says the U.S. Department of Homeland Security does not know how many foreigners who visited the CNMI have actually exited the islands because it does not have the capability to collect exit information data.

Jacinta M. Kaipat, deputy secretary of the CNMI Department of Labor, said her office is “working cooperatively” with the DHS units, the Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to address this problem.

In February, the U.S. Congress’ investigating agency, the General Accountability Office, reported that DHS still cannot access the CNMI’s Labor Information Data System and Border Management System despite the implementation of the law that federalized the islands’ immigration system on Nov. 28, 2009.

The GAO told the U.S. Senate Committee on Natural Resources, which has jurisdiction over the CNMI: “The LIDS and BMS databases have remained in the CNMI’s control during the CNMI’s transition to U.S. immigration law, and as of January 2010, the U.S. government’s direct access to information in these databases had not yet been established.”

Federal law enforcement agencies can only access those databases on a case-by-case basis despite their suggestion that those be linked to their existing systems: the Computer Linked Application Information Management System, ot CLAIMS 3 and 4, and the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, or US-VISIT.

But Kaipat said their office is working with the federal government.

“I can tell you that we are working cooperatively with CBP and ICE. For example, CBP does not have the capability to collect exit information on people leaving the commonwealth so they don’t know if tourists who arrived here in October and Nov. 2009, just before the deadline for federal control, have actually gone home or whether they have gone underground here in the commonwealth,” she said in her written testimony submitted to the CNMI Legislature.

“We have had the capability for years to collect exit information. For that reason, we are using our Border Management System to continue to collect exit information so we can help ICE identify overstayers. We cooperate with ICE by providing them with the data and information they need on a same-day basis when they investigate possible overstayers,” she added.

DOL has so far revoked about 200 umbrella permits and referred the names of an estimated 300 persons for possible removal or deportation from the CNMI.