Maintenance worker for 26 years set to be deported

A Filipino maintenance worker who has been on Saipan for 26 years now has been in detention after Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him last month when he did not appear at his immigration hearing due to confusion about his hearing date.

Elpedio Macaraeg has been begging to be taken to the hospital as his legs are swelling due to arthritis, according to Rene Reyes, founding president of the Marianas Advocates for Humanitarian Affairs Ltd., or MAHAL.

“When I visited him at the detention facility I felt sorry for him because he could not walk and was on a wheelchair,” Reyes said.

The MAHAL president said that ICE agents informed Macaraeg on Thursday that his airline ticket is now ready and that he should prepare for his deportation to the Philippines on Monday.

Reyes wonders why Macaraeg will be deported when in fact there is already a pending motion to re-open the removal proceedings filed before the Immigration Court.

Macaraeg’s immigration hearing was supposed to be on Oct. 4, but he mistakenly thought that it was for Oct. 9, Reyes said. He said he told Macaraeg that Oct. 9 was a Sunday so he should check the following day.

Reyes said that he accompanied Macaraeg to court on Oct. 10, but was surprised to find it closed and learned that it was a federal holiday, Columbus Day.

Reyes said he later accompanied Macaraeg to the Federal Ombudsman’s Office for assistance as Macaraeg was among the 628 aliens granted conditional umbrella permits by CNMI Labor.

Macaraeg was referred to a private counsel, who then informed them that they would ask for a hearing.

ICE agents, however, arrested Macaraeg outside the lawyer’s office, citing that a default ruling had already been issued. The ground for removal was that Macaraeg is jobless and has no umbrella permit.

Reyes said their lawyer immediately filed a motion to re-open the removal case.

Macaraeg has no U.S. children, no criminal record, and was among the 628 aliens who were granted conditional umbrella permit, Reyes said.

He said that Macaraeg, who has been working on many construction projects on the island for 26 years now, just wants to continue working as he already has a prospective employer.

“We are praying that the Immigration Court.would reconsider his case,” the MAHAL president said.

Attorney General Edward T. Buckingham’s grant of conditional umbrella permits to 628 aliens and then acting Labor secretary Cinta Kaipat’s later announcement that no such permits were issued were among the evidence discussed by a U.S. Immigration Court judge who had stopped the deportation of long-term alien worker Danilo Rejano.

In her order, Judge Dayna Beamer said that the Department of Homeland Security’s submission of a Saipan Tribune news article about Kaipat’s statement to support its argument that Labor never issued any conditional umbrella permits is hearsay.