Gov Fitial and legislature oppose move

Haidee V. Eugenio



 

From the streets and villages of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) to the halls of the US Congress in Washington, DC, a proposal to improve the immigration status of some 20,000 foreign workers in the CNMI has sparked a new round of debate.
CNMI is a US territory in the western Pacific,  about 30 miles away from Guam.
The Obama White House, through the US Department of the Interior, submitted to Congress on April 30 a report with a recommendation to consider allowing alien workers who have lawfully resided in the CNMI for at least five years to apply for long-term status under US immigration and nationality laws.
The Commonwealth estimated over 23,500 foreign workers in 2008. This exceeded the local workforce of over 12,000, mostly Chamorros and Carolinians, who were also conferred US citizenship in 1986.
While thousands of foreign workers and their supporters welcome the long-awaited recommendation, CNMI Governor Benigno R. Fitial and the CNMI Legislature are strongly opposed to it.
The foreign workers held a massive motorcade and a peaceful assembly on May 16 to show strong support to the Interior report and recommendation, while Fitial and lawmakers went to Washington, DC to testify against the report on May 18 at a congressional hearing. 
But the hearing was primarily on the implementation of US Public Law 110-229 that placed CNMI immigration under federal control starting on November 28, 2009.
CNMI government officials said there had been a lack of Interior consultation with the Commonwealth governor on the report and recommendation, as required by PL 110-229.
PL110-229, or the Consolidated Natural Resources Act, is the same law that allowed the CNMI to elect for the first time its first ever non-voting delegate to the US House of Representatives.
But Assistant Interior Secretary for Insular Affairs Tony M. Babauta said there had been consultations with Fitial on the Interior report. 
He said it is now up to the US Congress on what to do with the recommendations.

US citizenship,
permanent residency
The US Congress has yet to decide on what to do with the Interior report, which the CNMI governor wanted withdrawn.
The Interior report may be viewed at www.doi.gov/oia/reports/reportsCNMI.html.
Should the US Congress act favourably on the Interior recommendation, some 15,816 aliens who have been estimated residing in the CNMI for “five years or more” will be covered, along with others who have been here for “three to five years.” 
These figures are based on a Federal Labor Ombudsman accounting of aliens in the CNMI in December 2009.
The Interior cited three sample statuses under the US Immigration and Nationality Act that Congress could consider for long-time foreign workers in the CNMI, including:
• Alien workers could be conferred US citizenship by an act of Congress;
• Alien workers could be conferred a permanent resident status leading to US citizenship (per the normal provisions of the INA relating to naturalization), with the five-year minimum residence spent anywhere in the United States or its territories;
• Alien workers could be conferred a permanent resident status leading to US citizenship, with the five-year minimum residence spent in the CNMI.
Additionally, under US immigration law, special status is provided to aliens who are citizens of Freely Associated States.  FAS citizens are those from the Federated States of Micronesia (Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei), the Marshall Islands and Palau. Following this model:
• Alien workers could be granted a non-immigrant status like that negotiated for citizens of FAS, whereby such person may live and work in the United States and its territories;
• Alien workers could be granted a non-immigrant status like that negotiated for citizens of the FAS, whereby such persons may live and work in the CNMI only.
But Fitial said the granting of better status for nonresident workers is an important matter that should be considered at the local level before any federal legislation is considered.
“In this connection, I plan to discuss with the CNMI Legislature whether a referendum should be prepared on this subject for consideration of the Commonwealth’s voters at the November 2010 election,” he told a congressional committee in Washington, DC on May 18.
Ronnie Doca and Rabby Syed of the United Workers Movement-NMI, said they respect the CNMI elected leaders’ position on the Interior report, but they said the decision to improve the immigration status of long-term foreign workers now rests with the US Congress.
The federalization law required the Interior to submit a report on the alien worker population in the CNMI, as well as submit a recommendation on the status of these workers as the department deems fit, in consultation with the US Department of Homeland Security and CNMI governor.

‘Respect the report’
Amon Awit, who has been a nonresident worker in the CNMI for 16 years, said the CNMI government should respect the Interior’s decision to recommend a better status for those who have invested years or decades of their life to help build and sustain the Commonwealth’s economy.
But Fitial and others in the CNMI community said foreign workers were hired to work in the CNMI, not to obtain permanent residency or citizenship.
Anthony Sablan, an indigenous CNMI resident, said foreign workers should “go home when their contracts expire”.
Former CNMI teacher and now Florida-based human rights advocate Wendy Doromal said the granting of improved status to foreign workers “is truly long overdue.”
She said it is in the best interest of the CNMI leaders to embrace the Interior recommendation.
“A just and democratic federal guest worker program that regards long-term foreign workers as future citizens will benefit all who live and work in the CNMI,” Doromal added.

US Virgin Islands experience
The Interior report states that a precedent for Congress granting long-term status to non-immigrant workers was set by Public Law 97-271 in 1982.
This was when Congress gave more than 20,000 legal, long-time alien workers in the US Virgin Islands the opportunity to apply for U.S. permanent residence.
These alien workers had been in the territory for more than seven years on continuous residence.
But Interior said Congress may not necessarily use the US Virgin Islands model in granting improved immigration status to qualified foreign workers in the CNMI.
Greg Cruz, president of the local grassroots group Taotao Tano, said the CNMI is “but a tiny speck on the globe and certainly we are not the Virgin Islands and we must not allow our island to be used as a testing ground for amnesty’ across-the-board as in the case of over 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States still waiting for US Congress to act on their demands of U.S. citizenship.”
Worker groups in the CNMI said unlike the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently on the US mainland, the foreign workers in the CNMI came to the islands legally and are currently working and residing legally.
Syed of the United Workers Movement-NMI said the foreign workers in the CNMI are also already part of the US system, by possessing US Social Security numbers.
From professionals such as engineers, nurses, accountants, journalists and educators to house maids, carpenters and farmers, the CNMI is dependent on foreign labor mostly from the Philippines, China, Japan, Bangladesh and Thailand to run its tourism-based economy.

Political reality
The CNMI’s first delegate to the US House of Representatives, Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan, said “the political reality is that any immigration legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress.” 
He said the Interior came up with just that—recommendations.
“Whether you like the recommendations or you don’t like them—as President Obama said on Friday-Congress lacks ‘the appetite’ for immigration legislation this year,” Sablan said in a statement.
But Sablan said Congress has to have a “very serious and level-headed discussion about the future of foreign workers in the Marianas.”
“We need a labor force for our economy. We need consumers in our economy. Can we really afford to send all 20,000 foreign workers home?” he added.
Atty. Steve Woodruff, who has long been a supporter of worker’s rights in the CNMI, said for 30 years, the CNMI has operated under a system that divided foreign workers from local workers-to the detriment of all workers.
“It is a system that devalued our Chamorro and Carolinian brothers and sisters, at the same time that it claimed to protect them.
“We have begun the transition away from that system. Now is the time to complete that process,” Woodruff said during a peaceful assembly of foreign workers and their supporters.
Woodruff said “now is the time to liberate the people of the CNMI from the failed policies and prejudices of the past.”
Adding to the uncertainty surrounding the status of long-term foreign workers in the CNMI is the lack of final federal rules governing foreign workers during the transition to US immigration.
Two years after the law was signed to federalise CNMI immigration, the US Department of Homeland Security has also yet to issue final rules on foreign investors and the visa waiver programme.
But even before the final rules are out, the CNMI governor is already asking for amendments to the federalisation law, including extending the transition period from the end of 2014 to the end of 2019 and to extend the period of time for umbrella permits to remain in force, from two years to four years.