‘Difficult, if possible, to waive green card fee’

Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” C. Sablan yesterday said he has started working on legislation to help waive the green card fee for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who face losing their status by June 1 when the federal government takes over local immigration.

“It’s going to be very difficult, if possible. It’s still going to be difficult to get it through Congress but I am going to try real hard,” he said.

The United Workers Movement NMI is currently circulating a petition requesting the federal government to waive the green card application fee for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who reside in the CNMI. The petition has so far gathered over 100 signatures, according to its acting president, Rabby Syed.

Syed said they will seek support from Sablan to get their petition to the federal government.

Sablan said under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a request for a waiver is considered on an individual basis.

“I’m at the same time aware that it is expensive for some people here to apply and pay for the cost of petitioning [for a green card]. The larger problem is for many people here to meet the 125 percent of the federal poverty threshold to be eligible to petition [their relatives] for an immigrant status. We have drafted legislation; we just haven’t cleared it to introduce it,” he added.

In a Feb. 9 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Sablan said a 180-day delay in the implementation of the federalization law will provide more time to find a workable solution on this issue.

The CNMI has a family-based immigration status for immediate relatives—children, spouses and parents—of U.S. citizens and citizens of Freely Associated States. But the transition to federal immigration presents a problem for IRs and their families. The U.S. has no equivalent visa, and many IRs are not eligible for any U.S. visas.

The nearest equivalent visa to the IR visa, for example, would require U.S. citizen members of these families to petition for permanent resident visas for their children, spouses or parents. This will be difficult both in terms of cost and meeting income thresholds.

Syed said a green card application costs more than $3,000, and a sponsor with two household members must have an annual income of at least $17,500 based on the 2008 poverty guidelines, which he described as impossible to meet, given that the minimum wage in the CNMI is only $4.05 an hour.

Sablan said he is aware of the concerns of IRs of U.S. citizens.

“What I’m doing is showing Congress that there are human faces to this issue, not statistics. A thousand families in a community like ours is a large percentage,” Sablan said yesterday.

He said Congress may schedule a hearing for March to receive reports from the Department of Homeland Security on the status of its implementation of Public Law 110-229.