‘Green card’ bill for NMI’s alien workers pushed

Worker groups are pushing for a separate bill in Congress that will grant permanent residency or “green card” to legal, long-term foreign workers in the CNMI, and a draft of the bill will be presented by Florida-based human rights advocate Wendy Doromal to members of Congress.

Doromal’s draft bill says those who have been legally in the CNMI for at least five years should be granted green card status.

The proposal seeks to cover some 16,000 legal, long-term foreign workers in the CNMI.

A former Rota teacher, Doromal said she’s concentrating now on educating members of Congress so that they understand the history of the CNMI’s foreign workers and the differences between the legal, long-term foreign workers of the CNMI and the illegal aliens in the U.S. mainland.

“I am seeking a member to submit legislation to amend P.L. 110-229 to provide status to include all legal, long-term (five years or more) CNMI foreign workers and the other categories of CNMI legal aliens. I have several meetings scheduled and intend to work this summer on an education campaign,” Doromal told Saipan Tribune.

She said two Republican members from her State of Florida recently showed interest in the immigration issue.

“Whether their interest is motivated by gathering Hispanic votes or is a sincere effort to institute reform is unclear, but now is the time to educate them on the plight of the aliens in the CNMI and the fact that they are ‘legal’ and need status now. I will be reaching out to all members of both parties to support permanent residency status for the legal, long-term aliens of the CNMI through a bill or by adding a new CNMI Foreign Worker Adjustment group to the EB-4 ‘Certain Special Immigrants’ category of the INA,” Doromal added.

This group of long-term legal aliens that Doromal and workers group is pushing for is in addition to those that Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan (Ind-MP) has been trying to help through his H.R. 1466.

The fourth group intended to benefit from Sablan’s HR 1466 may be removed, and this group includes mostly foreign parents of minor U.S. citizens, as part of compromise mostly with Republican members.

HR 1466 is so far the only immigration bill to move in the 112th Congress, but the fourth group has proven to be a hard sell.

The three other groups covered in HR 1466 are CNMI permanent residents, those born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974, and Jan. 9, 1978, and the spouses, parents or children of U.S. citizens under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Rabby Syed, president of United Workers Movement-NMI, said their group has remained consistent with its goal of having “improved status for all.”

He reiterated that legal alien workers in the CNMI should be treated differently from illegal aliens in the U.S.

Boni Sagana, president of Dekada Movement, is also hoping that a separate bill be introduced in Congress that will basically push for the recommendations submitted by the U.S. Department of the Interior to Congress in 2010.

But the Fitial administration said there is already a procedure to attain U.S. citizenship and/or residency.

Rene Reyes, president of the Marianas Advocates for Humanitarian Affairs Ltd., also hopes that if the fourth group of people will be removed from the bill, Sablan should push for the Interior recommendations in Congress.

But Reyes acknowledges that Congress may not act immediately on such improved status bill since this is an election year.