‘Employers should start processing workers’ papers now’

Employers in the CNMI who want to retain their nonresident workers should start processing their papers now, according to Professor Rose Cuison-Villazor during Friday’s Law in the Community lecture series at the American Memorial park auditorium.

Rose Cuison-Villazor

Cuison-Villazor said that petitioning long-term guest workers is an option available now under federal immigration law so employers don’t have to wait for the bipartisan bill S.744—the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act that the U.S. Senate has passed.

S.744 includes a provision that would enable long-term guest workers in the CNMI to adjust their status to CNMI-only resident status and, after five years of passage of the law, enable them to apply for a U.S. immigration visa or adjust their status to lawful permanent resident.

Cuison-Villazor is an alumna of the American University Washington College of Law, who teaches property, immigration, and critical race theory at the University of California at Davis School of Law. She was a faculty member of Hofstra University School of Law and Southern Methodist University Dedman School of law. She is here, teaching in the 2014 Summer Pre-law Program.

Cuison-Villazor said that a number of immigration reform bills have been voted on in the Judiciary and Home Security committees in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Presumably, she said, one or a combination of these bills could be part of a broader comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House.

However, Cuison-Villazor doubts that comprehensive immigration reform will be passed right now as there’s just too much political inaction, which is why state and local governments have been trying to fill the gap.

In an interview after the lecture, Cuison-Villazor said in her opinion there are a lot of barriers for immigration reform to pass right now.

“I want to be clear about this. It does not mean it’s not going to pass. It just mean that as of right now it’s really going to be very difficult,” she said.

She said advocates for comprehensive immigration reform should continue to urge Congress to pass it and support the people who are trying to get it passed.

Cuison-Villazor does not know what advice to give guest workers who are hoping for the comprehensive immigration reform bill to pass because their status is all tied up with Congress.

“That’s what it is. Congress will decide that issue for them. There is not one person, not President Obama, not the CNMI Legislature,” she said.

The professor said the issue of guest workers’ improved immigration status in the CNMI is part of federal immigration comprehensive reform.

“So until that passage, we just have the law here that says you can work here so long as you have an employer who can petition for you,” she said.

Cuison-Villazor said if guest workers are related to someone who is a citizen or a permanent resident, then they should file the petition already.

“There are people who don’t because they think it is expensive. You know what, come up with the money and do it. Get a lawyer and do it because how else can you stay,” she added.

The professor also discussed in her lecture the Article 12 referendum. In November 2014, the CNMI ballot will include an initiative that would allow voters to decide whether to amend Article 12 of the CNMI Constitution.

The auditorium was packed with mostly lawyers and some long-term guest workers.