HR 1466 may have other changes

Besides the likely removal of foreign parents of minor U.S. citizen children from Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan’s (Ind-MP) H.R. 1466, another amendment could lower the family income threshold for the CNMI so that many “green card” applicants will be granted a fee waiver.

Just the same, workers’ groups in the CNMI are disappointed at the likely removal of the fourth group of people from HR 1466. United Workers Movement-NMI president Rabby Syed is contemplating a hunger strike and at least one lawmaker is saying the federal government should give back to the CNMI control over its own immigration.

Sablan met last night with leaders and members of workers’ groups in the CNMI to brief them about the status of HR 1466, which has been stalled but is still in union calendar.

HR 1466 grants “CNMI-only resident status” to four groups of people.

The three other covered groups are CNMI permanent residents, those born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974, and Jan. 9, 1978, and the spouses, parents or children of U.S. citizens under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“Nobody should be left behind. All legal long-term aliens in the CNMI should be given improved immigration status. We should not be treated like the illegal immigrants in the U.S.,” Syed told Saipan Tribune.

Sablan said it’s never his intention to change HR 1466. “But in Congress, as in any legislature, legislating something requires negotiation and maybe compromise but at this time, there has been no decision made on HR 1466 except progress,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune Wednesday night.

The removal of the fourth group and the lowering of the income threshold are among possible “compromises” with mostly Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Sablan, in another interview yesterday, said he has been working toward lowering the income threshold for the CNMI from $10,838 to $6,239.

Syed said this is a “good thing,” so that a lot of people in the CNMI applying for “green card” will be able to receive a fee waiver. Given the economic realities in the CNMI, he said it would be hard to come up with over $1,300 for a green card application, excluding other expenses.

“But we still need more clarification on this, whether this could really be done through legislation or could be done in-house by DHS [Department of Homeland Security],” Syed said.

He said he is thinking of going on a hunger strike to bring to the CNMI and the federal government’s attention the still-in-limbo status of long-term foreign workers in the CNMI.

“UWM is not only strongly opposed to the removal of the fourth group of people from HR 1466; we are also strongly opposed to the lack of improved federal immigration status for other long-term, legal aliens in the CNMI,” Syed said.

Boni Sagana, president of Dekada Movement, separately said they are also disappointed and dismayed that a compromise on HR 1466 will be to the detriment of the fourth group of people.

He said the three other groups do not necessarily need the protection offered by HR 1466, unlike the fourth group.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, meanwhile, welcomes the possibility that the fourth group of people covered in HR 1466 may be removed from the bill, to have a better chance of helping the three other groups that the CNMI government itself granted statuses to but were not recognized by the federal government when it took over local immigration.

Press secretary Angel Demapan, when asked whether the governor would ask his GOP colleagues in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate not to further block the bill once the fourth group is removed from the bill, said, “With the exception of CNMI permanent residents, those born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974, and Jan. 9, 1978, Governor Fitial still maintains that the others included in HR 1466 should not be granted outright improved status.”

“The governor maintains that like all other non-citizens throughout the United States, there already exists a procedure to attain U.S. citizenship and/or residency,” Demapan said.

The press secretary added that the governor “welcomes anyone to remain in the CNMI, provided that they are here legally, in accordance to existing laws.”

Among outstanding issues in HR 1466 is the fourth group of people that HR 1466 proposes to help-the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens as of May 8, 2008, regardless of the age of those U.S. citizens, and continuing to be on the islands with legal status. The issue is that allowing this class of people to get some form of status could set a precedent on U.S. soil.

But Syed said these people entered the CNMI legally and continue to remain in legal status, with Social Security numbers and have helped build the CNMI economy for years and decades. Syed said these people should not be treated the same as the millions of illegal aliens on the U.S. mainland.

No immigration bill has moved in the 112th Congress except Sablan’s HR 1466.