CW, E2C, asylum exemption bill up for US Senate vote

An omnibus territories bill is now on its way to a U.S. Senate floor vote that could extend the CNMI’s transitional CW and E2C investor programs by five years after Dec. 31, 2014, as well as stretches the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications beyond Jan. 1, 2015. Even if U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez uses his administrative authority to extend the CW program for foreign workers, the E2C investor visa program and the asylum application exemptions would still come to an end in eight months unless legislation extending those is passed and signed into law.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s filing last week of a report on S. 1237 or the Omnibus Territories Act cleared the way for a vote on the Senate floor.

If and when the U.S. Senate passes S. 1237, it still has to go through full U.S. House of Representatives for a vote before heading to President Barack Obama.

Gov. Eloy S. Inos, for his part, said it would be “ideal” if the asylum application exemption is made “permanent” or at least while the CNMI still relies heavily on tourists from China and Russia without a U.S. visa.

Both the delegate and the governor are wary that when the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications is not extended beyond Jan. 1, 2015, it could “open the floodgates” for tourists claiming asylum once they are admitted to the islands under a visa waiver program.

The Chinese government in particular could also start restricting its citizens from traveling to the CNMI as tourists once the U.S. territory accepts asylum applications.

Persons applying for asylum or protection with the U.S. could claim political or religious persecution in their own country.

“Anybody who comes to the CNMI as a tourist and once they land, they [could] say they want to apply for asylum. It’s a situation like it was years ago. Once it [exemption] expires on Jan. 1, we can’t say no [to asylum applicants]. Imagine the number of folks who want to do that. It’s just unthinkable. In the end, we’d be inundated with just asylum seekers here, it’s not going to be good,” Inos said, responding to Saipan Tribune questions.

When asked how long he would like the CNMI’s exemption from accepting asylum applications, Inos said it’s a “tough” question to answer.

“Ideally if we make it permanent. But this issue about asylum, it’s a real hot partisan issue back in [Washington, D.C.]. Some people say let them come in and apply; there are others who say don’t. To say for how long, in my view, as long as we rely on tourist traffic from China [and Russia] then we should be very careful because once this thing opens up, there goes our tourism market,” Inos said.

‘Boat people’ situation

Inos cited a situation in 1999 when the federal government brought more than 600 illegal Chinese to temporary shelters on Tinian after the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted their boats near Guam.

The governor said there was a belief that the so-called “boat people” were diverted to Tinian because the CNMI does not allow asylum applications unlike Guam, although the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service at the time said they were not denying asylum to the intercepted aliens.

“Remember the situation couple of years ago when boat people were headed to Guam and there was this fear that if they went to Guam, once they apply [for asylum], they’ve got to take them. That’s why they diverted the ship up here because up here we can deny. So we need to address that,” Inos said in an interview on Friday’s signing of the National Library Week proclamation on Friday.

U.S. Public Law 110-229 isolated the CNMI from the rest of the United States with respect to applications for asylum. That’s the law that placed CNMI immigration under federal control.

The law states, “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to authorize or require any person described in section 208(e) to be permitted to apply for asylum under section 208 at any time before” Jan. 1, 2015.

Omnibus concerns

Sablan, in an interview at his office, said extending the CW and E2C programs as well as extending the CNMI’s exemption from receiving asylum applicants are “time sensitive so we’re working on different ways to get this thing.”

Besides S. 1237, there was also an accompanying U.S. House bill, H.R. 2200, that addresses the same issues.

Just recently, Sablan also introduced a standalone bill, H.R. 4296, also to extend the transition period by five years or up to 2019.

Sablan said he is working to get a hearing on this bill this month. The bill has been referred to the U.S. House Committees on Natural Resources and Judiciary.

He reiterated that the U.S. Labor secretary assured him that he won’t wait for the 11th hour before deciding whether to grant the CNMI’s request to extend the CW program.

S. 1237, according to Sablan, not only allows for a gradual phase-out of the CW program and E2C investor status, but also allows military contractors to use H visa workers for build-up construction, if necessary.

The CNMI still does not have enough numbers of qualified U.S. workers to fill all the estimated 10,000 jobs held currently by skilled and professional foreign workers, mostly from the Philippines and other Asian countries.

But while the CNMI government and the Saipan Chamber of Commerce and other business groups support extending the CW program, there are others that are pushing for another way to stabilize the CNMI’s workforce.

Florida-based human rights activist and former CNMI teacher Wendy Doromal said instead of “five more years of uncertainty and disenfranchisement for the most deserving and loyal immigrants on U.S. soil,” the “more logical, humane and just move would be to amend the CNRA to provide an immediate obstacle-free pathway to citizenship to all of the CNMI’s 12,000 or less legal, long-term nonresident workers.”

“Any guest worker program that lacks a pathway to citizenship is a program that reduces the workers to labor units. That is exactly what the CNMI-Only Guest Worker Program does. It sucks the humanity from those who fill 90 percent of the private sector jobs in the CNMI. But this is political chess, not ethical chess. The Labor Secretary hears from fellow bureaucrats and politicians, and not the nonresidents who have built the CNMI and keep its economy advancing. He has not even visited the CNMI. It is unlikely that he would do the right thing. Hopefully, he will renew the program for a year at the most,” Doromal said.

E2C investors

Some E2C investors, meanwhile, have been demanding for improved immigration status so they won’t be forced to depart the CNMI after 2014. They are those who were allowed to remain in the CNMI under E2C status even with a minimum investment of $50,000 instead of $150,000, but that would only be allowed until the end of this year.

After 2014, these investors will be required to obtain another U.S. immigrant or nonimmigrant visa classification.

Sablan said the most recent information they have from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is that there were 261 E2 or E2C investors as of Jan. 6, 2014.