FAS-like status eyed again

With limited options available to avoid the mass exit of needed foreign workers after 2014, the Senate leadership said yesterday it will push anew for its proposal to U.S. Congress to grant alien workers who have been in the CNMI for at least 10 years as of May 2008 an immigration status similar to those granted to Freely Associated States citizens.

Senate Vice President Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian), chair of the Federal Relations and Independent Agencies Committee, said the CNMI still needs a reasonable number of foreign workers to help fuel its economy.

“One year has passed since we presented our recommendation to Congress. We will push for it again, and will write a follow-up letter to the chairman of the U.S. House committee with oversight on the CNMI,” Hofschneider said.

Under the Senate recommendation, there’s an additional five-year waiting period or until 2013 before eligible foreign workers could apply for a FAS-like status.

FAS citizens are those from Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia’s Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, and Kosrae.

Hofschneider and three other senators presented their recommendation on the status of long-term foreign workers in the CNMI to House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans, and Insular Affairs chair John Fleming (R-LA) in March 2011 in Washington, D.C.

“We still stand by our recommendation of FAS-like status for long-term foreign workers,” the senator said.

Foreign workers need to have nonimmigrant or immigrant visa classifications under the Immigration and Nationality Act such as H visas when the federalization transition period ends on Dec. 31, 2014. But many of the existing transitional workers won’t be able to qualify for INA visas in two years’ time.

Other options to allow the CNMI economy to still have access to some 10,000 foreign workers include extending the transition period, granting improved immigration status to foreign workers, or returning control of local immigration to the CNMI government.

Jun Concillado, vice president of the United Workers Movement-NMI, said they welcome recommendations to improve the status of long-term foreign workers, including the CNMI Senate recommendations for a FAS-like status to eligible alien workers.

“We thank the Senate for looking after the welfare and status of long-term foreign workers in the CNMI. We are not opposing this recommendation, but we have made known our position ever since that we would like pathway to citizenship,” Concillado told Saipan Tribune.

Concillado said UWM hopes that the U.S. Congress acts on the U.S. Department of the Interior’s May 2010 recommendations on improved status of long-term alien workers, especially the first two of five recommendations that include outright grant of U.S. citizenship and permanent residency or pathway to citizenship.

The CNMI Senate’s recommendation to Congress was a product of a series of public hearings and “as a sensible compromise on improved legal immigration status for guest workers and retention of the right to self-government as guaranteed in the Covenant between the U.S. and the Commonwealth.”

Concillado said UWM also welcomes Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan’s H.R. 1466, although they wish the bill would include more foreign workers. The bill seeks a grant of CNMI-only resident status for limited groups of people in the CNMI.