WASHINGTON — The Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program came under renewed scrutiny Wednesday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed she had recently met with the CNMI governor, acknowledged the islands want the program restored, but said compliance with security concerns would need to come first.
The exchange was initiated by Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisconsin, who used his questioning time to raise what he described as national security, public safety, and immigration fraud concerns tied to the visa waiver program. Tiffany argued that a rule finalized at the end of the Biden administration, building on a program established during the Obama administration, had effectively allowed Chinese nationals to enter the Mariana Islands without going through the standard visa process. He said that during and after the Obama years, the CNMI saw what he called an explosion of birth tourism, claiming Chinese mothers were having more children on the islands than U.S. residents.
“I sent a letter to your agency back in February and we have not received an answer,” Tiffany told Noem. “Can we get an answer to that?”
Noem confirmed her agency would respond, and then disclosed the meeting with the CNMI’s top executive. “I just met with the governor there,” she said, “and we talked about them wanting that back, but me recognizing that they needed to come in compliance with some of those security concerns first.”
Noem also said she did not believe Chinese nationals were currently sidestepping the visa process, describing their visits as tourist arrivals. When Tiffany asked whether birth tourism had been brought under control under the current administration, Noem said she believed it had.
The CNMI governor’s Washington delegation addressed the same subject during a press conference on Saipan earlier Wednesday. CJ Bermudes, executive director of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers and the CNMI lead for the immigration and labor working group established during the 902 consultation, said the delegation had worked to counter what he described as misinformation circulating in Washington about the CNMI’s transitional worker and visitor programs. The delegation cited a 0.25 percent overstay rate under the EVS-TAP program, a figure that Customs and Border Protection officials themselves cited approvingly during meetings, according to multiple attendees. Governor Apatang also noted that since the CNMI signed an agreement with DHS, that figure is expected to improve further.
The 90-minute meeting between Apatang and Noem, which ran far beyond the 20 minutes his team had anticipated, was described by the delegation as an opportunity to push back on false narratives about the commonwealth and press for changes to the Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program. Wednesday’s congressional hearing suggests those issues remain very much in play on Capitol Hill.
