Still wait-and-see mode on immigration issues in NMI

Two immigration-related issues were staples in the local media in 2013—U.S. Congress bills that contain a provision allowing a pathway to citizenship for thousands of long-term legal aliens in the CNMI plus a continuing resistance from some individuals, and the Commonwealth’s push to extend the Dec. 31, 2014, end of the transitional CW program to allow some 10,000 foreign workers to continue working on the islands.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan’s (Ind-MP) efforts have ensured the inclusion of a CNMI-specific provision in S. 744 and H.R. 15, both providing a pathway to citizenship to some 11 million undocumented aliens in America.

This is the farthest that such a push for the CNMI’s long-term legal aliens’ improved status has gone in years.

The bipartisan S. 744 already passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of 68-32, and is now pending in the U.S. House.

But a group called Northern Marianas Descent Corp., whose officers and members could be eyeing candidacies in the 2014 elections, wants Congress to reject the CNMI provision that allows improved immigration status for thousands of foreigners.

A resolution in the CNMI House of Representatives objects to granting a pathway to improved status for these long-term legal aliens, but the CNMI Senate is contemplating a resolution supporting it.

Either way, CNMI immigration has already come under federal control under a law signed in 2008.

While the NMD Corp. continues to drum up support to their cause, Gov. Eloy S. Inos has been echoing the delegate’s sentiment that the CNMI provision in sweeping national immigration reform bills does not violate the Covenant that established the political relationship between the U.S. and Northern Marianas.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Saipan Chamber of Commerce president Alex Sablan said of the proposed improved immigration status for long-term alien workers in the CNMI.

Those covered in S. 744 include foreign workers who have been legally in the CNMI since at least 2003, and those with U.S. citizen children regardless of the age of the children.

After an additional five-year waiting period, these aliens can start applying for U.S. permanent residence status or “green card,” a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

Meanwhile, the CNMI awaits a decision by U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez to extend the Commonwealth-only or CW program beyond Dec. 31, 2014.

Sablan said Perez’s decision is expected as early as January 2014.

The CNMI seeks a five-year extension or up to 2019, while it prepares the local workforce to take over the jobs held by foreign workers.