Workers hope for administrative fix

It has come to this.

With only 18 days left before they lose their immigration status on June 29, foreign workers under the categorical parole or those with employment authorization documents are hoping the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would provide an administrative fix so they could legally remain and work in the CNMI.

There is the hope that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres would use his “connections” with the administration of President Donald Trump to make that administrative fix happen.

There is a bill in the U.S. Congress—H.R. 559 or the Northern Mariana Islands Long-Term Legal Residents Relief Act—that would resolve these affected workers’ situation but, just in case the bill fails to pass the Senate, “we’re calling on Gov. Torres…to write [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] so they could have an administrative decision and grant us an extension,” said foreign worker advocate Itos Feliciano.

“The [June 29] deadline is near, just 18 days away. For now, we can be considered as assets of the U.S. federal government because we also pay taxes. But, after June 29, we’re going to be a liability once we lose our legal status,” added Feliciano.

He pointed out that some officials had wanted to grant legal and permanent status to some 2 million illegal and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. mainland under the proposed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.

“Here in the CNMI, we are legal taxpayers. And yet, they [federal government] want us out or remove our legal status. In the U.S. mainland, they wanted to give citizenship status to those DACA Dreamers. The kids here in the CNMI are natural-born citizens, [yet] they want to strip them of their rights and remove from the land of their birth. Where is justice in this situation?”

Feliciano has called for meetings with foreign workers from Bangladesh, China, and the Philippines that are under the program or EAD holders to discuss their next steps.

USCIS terminated the categorical parole program and EAD in late December last year, giving individuals under these programs a transition window of 180 days to obtain another immigration status in order to remain and work in the CNMI legally.

The termination will affect the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and other stateless individuals, CNMI permanent residents and their IRs, IRs of citizens of Freely Associated States (the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau), and caregivers of CNMI residents.

The 180-day window ends on June 29, Saturday. A total of 1,038 individuals must either leave the CNMI or should have transitioned to other valid U.S. work visas in order to remain in the Commonwealth legally.

H.R. 559 or the Northern Mariana Islands Long-Term Legal Residents Relief Act, a bill introduced by Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) in the U.S. House of Representatives, would give them permanent residency status in the CNMI once it is signed into law by Trump. It passed the House last week but it still needs to hurdle the Republican-majority U.S. Senate.