By Mark N. Mengonfia
Monrovia-Feb-14-TNR:Plenary of the House of Representatives has mandated its Committees on Judiciary, Labor, Good Governance and Foreign Affairs to review an amendment request from Nimba County District Seven Representative, Musa Hassan Bility.
Tuesday, February 13, 2024, the Nimba County lawmaker wrote the Speaker of that august body requesting an amendment to the Liberian Aliens and Nationality Law of 2022. He said, “I submit herewith a proposal for amendment of the Liberia Aliens and Nationality Law of 2022.”
Rep. Bility said the instrument is a complete Bill which would revise and codify all of Liberia’s laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and nationality.
He wants a general revision and modernization of these laws which he said are needed and long overdue, particularly with respect to citizenship, immigration and naturalization and seeks to provide a policy that is in tune with the current global realities that takes Liberia a step forward, especially in view of the crying need for reform.
He said, “In recent years, our citizenship, immigration and naturalization policy has become a matter of major national concern with questions about its effect on our national and cultural fabric.”
When he was asked if he has had another citizenship aside from the Liberian citizenship, the Nimba lawmaker responded this way, “Absolutely not.”
According to him, he does not have permanent residence status in any other country but his quest was for the country to be opened up so that Liberians who have gone off for greener pastures will have the opportunity to return home and happily be Liberian. “Once a Liberian is always a Liberian,” the Nimba lawmaker said.
He told his colleagues that whatever decision they will take on the instrument is important to the continuous growth and development in their quest for a unification among Liberians, critical to the economic and social strength, pertinent to the conduct of foreign relations, and most important, “Critical to our responsibilities of moral leadership in the struggle for unity.”
The Nimba County lawmaker has been apparently working on the instrument long before becoming lawmaker.
He said in the communication, “The last few years, we begun this work with the enactment of the Dual Citizenship Clause. This was a major win for Liberia. We must continue the work to further create laws not to keep people out, but to bring qualified and productive people in and find better ways to meet the immigration challenges of the 1870’s that are so prevalent in our Alien and Nationality Law.”
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