Are we prepared? What about the children?

Most people want to be law-abiding. The foreign nationals in the CNMI, for the most part, have been law-abiding people contributing their labor to our community. Despite some of the online comments about them, they’re not “overstayers” yet until their umbrella permits run out on Nov. 27, 2011.

Many foreign workers are under enormous stress caused by the uncertainty of the immigration changes. Will their employers seek CW status for them? As Frank Gibson pointed out in his recent article, the advertisements for jobs in the newspapers do not match the number of actual jobs being filled by foreign workers and this lack indicates that many, many employers are behind schedule on what needs to be done to get CW permits for workers.

Many foreign nationals here are trying to come up with fees for their immediate relative petitions, but are struggling in this economy.

The foreign nationals who have U.S. citizen children have tough choices to make. If they must leave, and they must if they haven’t obtained some lawful status by Nov. 27, 2011, do they take their U.S. citizen children with them? Or leave them behind?

For some, they simply don’t have the money to buy the tickets. Their children will be left here.

For some, their children are handicapped or disabled or have special needs. As U.S. citizen children, they benefit from the safety net of Medicaid, which ensures they will at least have some access to medical care. If their parents take them to the parent’s home country, a foreign country that may be new for these U.S. citizen children, the children may suffer because their parents lack the money to pay and without payment they will have no access to medical treatment. For some, the disruption alone would be harmful to the children, so change in their treatment regimens is not an option.

For some, their U.S. citizen children benefit from the safety net of food stamps. If the foreign national parents take their children with them to what is, for the children, a foreign country, the U.S. citizen children may suffer because their parents are unable to feed them.

For some, they’ll take their U.S. citizen children with them, no matter what.

For many, possibly most, they will make arrangements to leave their children here. Some lucky departing parents will find trustworthy friends or family to take the children in. Some parents will trust friends or family, who prove untrustworthy or incapable of the task. Some parents will trust their teenaged children to take care of their younger siblings. And some may just leave.

Has the CNMI given any consideration to this? Is the Superior Court ready for an avalanche of guardianship petitions? Is DYS geared up to handle abandoned U.S. citizen children?

Has USCIS considered what the effect will be on the CNMI and to countless U.S. citizen children who face abandonment if it refuses the request of Congressman Sablan to grant parole-in-place to those who would be within the protection of his pending legislation? Does it realize that immediate relative parent who doesn’t have the $420 to file an I-130 or the widowed parent who can’t afford $405 to file an I-360 is not going to be able to afford airline tickets for their children (and maybe not for themselves). ICE may pay removal costs for a deported alien, but what about the U.S. citizen children? Doesn’t the CNRA require some effort to ameliorate negative impacts from the federalization of immigration here?

Many, many U.S. citizen children of foreign national parents here are currently highly stressed themselves and fearful of the uncertain future. They are struggling to stay focused on school and life, but their emotional and mental health is wilting under the pressure.

We are a small community. We’re not prepared for the inevitable abandonment of U.S. citizen children that a strict USCIS enforcement policy will bring about. No matter how laudable a rule-based immigration program is (and it is), there must also be a realistic look at the effects. We want to help these U.S. citizen children, but the job may be too big for our community when the parents of these children are gone. What will we do then?