‘Worker rules, not improved status’

Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan clarified yesterday that the rules expected to be released in September will cover only the issue of the Commonwealth-only transitional worker visa and not improved status for long-term aliens in the CNMI—as many in the community wrongly believe.

The 90-day period for the White House to review the proposed CW rule ends on Sept. 15.

“The Department of the Interior has never officially or unofficially asked me or any member of Congress I know of to introduce legislation to implement the [Interior] recommendations,” Sablan said in an interview in his office late afternoon yesterday.

U.S. Public Law 110-229, the law that placed CNMI immigration under federal control, only required Interior to prepare a report and recommendation to Congress on the status of nonresidents in the CNMI.

At the same time, the CNMI House of Representatives adopted a resolution yesterday afternoon that, in essence, opposes Sablan’s pending H.R. 1466, which seeks to grant CNMI-only resident status for limited groups of people in the CNMI.

By a vote of 12-6, the House adopted Rep. Ray Basa’s (Cov-Saipan) amended resolution endorsing Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s testimony in the U.S. Congress opposing HR 1466, which now has 47 sponsors that include 46 Democrats and one Republican.

Sablan’s HR 1466 is also separate from Interior’s recommendations to Congress in 2010 to grant improved status to nonresidents who have been legally in the CNMI for at least five years. Status options include outright U.S. citizenship, “green card,” or a status similar to those given to Freely Associated States citizens.

Sablan said House members who voted on Basa’s resolution “are playing shell games,” and raising issues that have nothing to do with HR 1466.

“Either they haven’t read the bill [HR 1466] or they read it but misunderstood it, or they’re getting advice that’s not correct… I understand each member who voted [on the resolution] was reading a script prepared by someone else,” Sablan said in an interview at his office.

Vice Speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) and other members who strongly opposed Sablan’s bill read their comments on the bill during heated discussions at the House session yesterday afternoon.

Members of the House majority mostly voted “yes” on House Resolution 17-56, House Substitute 1 that, in essence, opposes HR 1466.

The six who voted “no” were members of the House minority, including minority leader Joseph Deleon Guerrero (R-Saipan), Rep. Frank Dela Cruz (R-Saipan), Rep. Tony Sablan (R-Saipan), Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota), Rep. Ray Tebuteb (R-Saipan), and Rep. Ray Yumul (R-Saipan).

Absent from the session were Reps. Trenton Conner (R-Tinian), and Ralph Demapan (Cov-Saipan).

Ogumoro, Basa, Rep. Fred Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan), Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) and Rep. Ray Palacios (Cov-Saipan) spoke strongly against Sablan’s HR 1466.

During a brief session break, Tenorio said a Republican U.S. Congress should bring back control of immigration to the CNMI government.

Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) echoed other members’ statement that those who want to become U.S. citizens should go through the normal process “just like anybody else.”

House majority members said that Sablan’s bill provides a direct route to U.S. citizenship and would create an estimated 11,000 new U.S. citizens in the CNMI, all of whom are adults and potential voters.

Sablan said his bill does not give U.S. citizenship but if those covered want to become U.S. citizens, they should go through the normal process just like what CNMI House members are saying.

“Nothing is automatic,” Sablan said.

He said the status that his HR 1466 is proposing is the same status that the CNMI government is already granting certain non-U.S. citizens.

The delegate also said that the CW visa to be issued to qualified workers need to be applied for—“they’re also not automatic,” he said.

“Those individuals who do not have a CW visa and do not have the protection of the INA will be out of status,” he said.

Sablan said his bill addresses the status of individuals left out in the CW regulations that are expected to be released next month.

Even if the White House maximizes the allowed review period of up to Sept. 15, Sablan said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will have ample time to process the CW visas to be applied for by CNMI employers.

“DHS has a plan on how to implement the program,” he added.

Nov. 27, 2011, is the last day of the two-year period allowed under the federalization law wherein workers can still remain in the CNMI using a Commonwealth-issued permit.

Sablan reiterated that there will be no mass deportation of nonresident workers unless they have criminal violations, if the CW visas are not issued by Nov. 27.

The CW regulations will pave the way for employers to apply for a CW visa on behalf of their employees and this CW visa will allow these employees to work in the CNMI even without an H-visa until the end of the transition period in December 2014. This is entirely separate from the issue of granting improved status to nonresidents.

HR 1466 proposes a “CNMI-only resident status” for immediate relatives of U.S. citizens as of May 8, 2008, and continuing to be on the islands; CNMI permanent residents; those born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974, and Jan. 9, 1978; and the spouses or children, “as defined in section 101(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(b)(1)), of an alien described in subclauses (I) or (II).”

Some CNMI House members said yesterday that HR 1466 is “unfair” because it does not cover those who have been in the CNMI for a long time but do not have U.S. citizen children.