No improved status for aliens

Years of pursuing an improved immigration status for long-term alien workers have yielded nothing. Worse, those whose umbrella permits expired on Nov. 27 are now hanging by a thread unless U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approves their humanitarian parole request and petitions for Commonwealth-only worker status.

Up until yesterday, many long-term alien workers, including those who are now jobless because of the grim state of the economy, were still hoping that USCIS will grant parole for all aliens legal as of Nov. 27. That didn’t happen.

Bonifacio Sagana, president of Dekada Movement and one of the organizers of the Unity March in December 2007, said it has been “frustrating” that Congress continues to ignore Interior’s recommendation to grant improved status to long-term foreign workers.

“It’s frustrating but I don’t regret supporting federal takeover. I believe with or without improved status, the CNMI immigration had to be federalized because of labor abuses,” said Sagana, who has yet to get back wages from a security firm he worked for more than 10 years ago.

While such improved status was removed from the final bill that became the federalization law, he said they were hoping that Congress will eventually act on Interior’s recommendations.

Sagana said many have obtained parole-in-place from USCIS, but this only gives them status to remain in the CNMI up until Jan. 31, 2012, or Dec. 31, 2012, and is not about improved status. He said H.R. 1466 also does not grant “improved status” but only allows continued status to remain in the CNMI-similar to the old CNMI system.

Mel Domingo, 62, said he’s been a legal worker in the CNMI since 1991 until his contract was not renewed on Jan. 30, 2010. While he has already found a new employer, his CW application is still pending.

“I came here as a legal worker, spent years of my life here, I got older here, paid taxes here, has not committed a crime, and I have been hoping that all our requests for improved status will be granted, but there’s nothing. If this were under U.S. immigration, I would have been eligible for green card a long time ago,” said Domingo, who was among the thousands who marched in support of federalization in 2007.

Rabby Syed, president of United Workers Movement-NMI, said that while it’s disappointing that long-term foreign workers’ request for improved status has been ignored for years, he is not losing hope that “something” can still be done.

He said UWM will continue to push for “green card, pathway to U.S. citizenship” despite losing the battle on “parole for all legal aliens as of Nov. 27,” although he said he’s happy USCIS will consider granting parole to four groups of people.

Syed also announced yesterday that they will have a Dec. 4 meeting at 6pm to map out a strategy to help those who are left out from the new parole that USCIS announced on Thanksgiving and those left out in HR 1466.

Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos said there’s nothing they could do with the Nov. 27 expiration of umbrella permits issued by the CNMI government, as well as the Nov. 28 deadline for filing CW petitions for continued employment of legal foreign workers.

‘US failures’

Human rights advocate and former Rota teacher Wendy Doromal, in responding to Saipan Tribune questions, said that, at this point, the U.S. government “has failed the legal, long-term foreign resident workers.”

She said the first failure was when no status provision was provided in U.S. Public Law 110-229 or the federalization law, despite extensive efforts to explain the dangers of omitting such a provision.

The second failure, she said, was the failure of Congress to immediately respond to the DOI report with recommendations for status for the foreign workers.

“An aware Congress would have been anticipating the report and preparing legislation, but this Congress failed even after the report was issued in April 2010 to act immediately despite the pleas, petitions, letters, and reports from the advocates and the foreign workers. There still has been no legislation introduced that addresses the DOI recommendations to provide status for all of the CNMI’s legal, foreign resident workers,” she said.

Like many other foreign workers, Doromal does not consider parole, CNMI-only resident status offered in HR 1466, and CW status to be “improved” status.

She reiterated that Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan’s HR 1466 is a “flawed immigration bill, un-American, and very destructive, in that it stands as an obstacle [to] a much-needed bill to address the status for all of the legal, foreign resident workers of the CNMI.

“One essential purpose of the CNRA was to align the CNMI with the INA and U.S. immigration law. H.R. 1466 proposes to create another category under the INA called CNMI-only status. It sets a dangerous precedent. Do we really want to see Alabama-only or Arizona-only status? This goes against everything that anyone who supports comprehensive immigration reform believes in,” said Doromal.

She said as Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) remarked when he, Sablan, and 37 other House members signed an amicus brief in support of the U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit against the Alabama law: “The Constitution is quite clear about the federal government’s preeminent role in immigration matters and having 50 inconsistent state policies toward immigrants is a level of chaos the Founders sought to avoid.”

Sablan said that HR 1466 is moving inch by inch. USCIS’ announcement to grant on a case-by-case basis parole until Dec. 31, 2012, to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and certain stateless individuals will give Congress more time to act on his bill. But Sablan said if he changes his bill to accommodate the thousand others that Doromal has been referring to, his bill will not pass.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial is not only against HR 1466, but also wants to stop USCIS from granting parole to these individuals.

He wants USCIS to rid the CNMI of illegal nonresidents and might take the route of filing a lawsuit, but will wait for the results of a review by the Office of the Attorney General on the matter.

Band aids

Doromal pointed out that all the actions-parole, CNMI-only resident status, and CW status-are just band-aids that the U.S. government is attempting to place on “a problem the size of a hemorrhage.”

“There exists a humanitarian crisis in the CNMI that is being excused, or ignored by the federal government. My heart goes out to every foreign worker and their family members in this terrible time of uncertainty and disappointment,” she said.

She added that if HR 1466 passes without being amended, foreign workers will probably lose hope that they will ever be given a pathway to citizenship.

“Congressman Sablan has made it clear that he wants the 12,000 foreign workers that he so callously omitted from his bill to ‘go home,’ as he told me when I met with him in October. Governor Fitial has offered even less support. In a day, on Nov. 28, 2011, most of the foreign workers will wake up and find themselves out of status. If HR 1466 passes, there will be no other ‘status’ bill introduced,” she said.

Doromal added that HR 1466 harms all of the workers-“the three-fourth heartlessly left out, and the one-fourth who would receive an inferior status that would keep them as second-class citizens, disenfranchised with restricted travel until they are petitioned by a U.S. citizen relative.”

But when asked whether she thinks federalized immigration is better than the CNMI system, she said the federal system is still in its infancy and transitioning so that leaves hope that it could become an effective program.

“However, scams and cheating of foreign workers still exists under the federal system. The system that maintained the oppressive two-tiered society of the haves and have-nots still exists under the federal program. The idea that guest workers should be treated as less than human, as replaceable commodities still exists. The injustices continue and will continue because the program is flawed, just like the CNMI program was,” she said.

Doromal also said that any guest worker program that has a revolving turnstile where foreign workers can enter, be abused, be denied justice, be sent home, and new ones are welcomed in to repeat the cycle is “inhumane and un-American.”

“A just guest worker program requires that foreign workers must be viewed as future citizens. A just guest worker program ensures that the foreign workers are paid what is owed them. Hopefully, the federal government will realize this and take the proper steps to reform the program. That is the only way it can be seen as being ‘better’ than the CNMI system,” she added.

Foreign workers are still owed at least $6.1 million in back wages, among other things, by CNMI employers.

Rene Reyes, president of Marianas Advocates for Humanitarian Affairs Ltd. or Mahal and one of the organizers of the unity march, said he’s disappointed that long-term guest workers still do not have improved status.

He said that after all’s been said and done and yet the federal government does not listen, it’s no longer the fault of foreign workers who have helped build the CNMI economy. Just like Doromal, he said it’s not the long-term foreign workers’ failure, but the U.S. government’s failure to address their immigration status.