Lawyer refutes Tenorio’s take on Dekada

Contrary to Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio’s position on a group’s quest for permanent residency, lawyer Steve Woodruff said that the U.S. Congress can clearly pass a law that would entitle long-serving alien workers in the CNMI an improved immigrations status.

“Congress can clearly pass a law that defines who is eligible for permanent residency and who is not. That is basic. That’s currently within the power of Congress,” said Woodruff, who represents Dekada Movement in an interview yesterday.

Tenorio said during a media briefing last week that Congress could not grant permanent residency to Dekada members because the lawmaking body can only grant U.S. citizenship.

“My first reaction was, does he [Tenorio] want Dekada to seek U.S. citizenship rather than residency? Maybe that’s what they should do. Second, he seems to have a really peculiar idea of what the powers of the U.S. Congress are. Somehow he thinks that its powers are limited on that area,” he said, noting that in fact, Dekada is not the first to float the idea of permanent residency.

In 1997, he said that a bipartisan federal commission on immigration report raised the possibility of permanent residency for aliens in the CNMI.

Although Tenorio said that he does not want to discourage Dekada members from pursuing their dream, Woodruff said that the official is actually scaring people from supporting the group.

“He says he is not lobbying against it. I assume he is telling the truth when he says that but he sure [heck] is scared of something, and he sure [the heck] is trying to scare people from supporting Dekada’s effort,” the lawyer said.

The Washington Representative said that Dekada members “can do what they want, but I want to be honest with them and be very straightforward about it because some of them are not being provided proper information.”

“It’s unfair for people to be paying $100 when somebody knows full well that prospects for success is not going to come…The U.S. Congress is not going to grant Dekada applicants opportunity for green card because U.S. Congress does not have that right. It has the right for citizenship but residency is not possible.”

Woodruff said, though, that if Congress could approve the Covenant and grant U.S. citizenship, “Why can’t they do something short of that?”

He said Tenorio’s statement was “shortsighted and backward thinking,” noting that even if not a single Dekada member ever gets an improved immigration status similar to “green card” as a result of the current effort, most of them have children born in the CNMI, who would eventually become voters.

“Everyone of those children will turn 18 and some of them have turned 18 already. And everyone of them is going to vote. And everyone one of them is going to remember what politicians and what political parties have supported their parents and which ones were against them. This is a fundamental truth of democracy. Ultimately, the right prevails. It takes a long time, but it prevails,” said Woodruff.

He said Tenorio’s comments, which echoed Insular Affairs deputy assistant secretary David Cohen’s earlier statements, “reflect a fundamental ignorance of what Dekada’s goals are and what has been done in the entire process.”

He said Dekada’s goal has always been “to obtain an improved immigration status for long-term alien residents of NMI who have made significant contribution to the islands and who have significant involvement or integration in the community.”

The lawyer said that Dekada members, who paid out $100 each. know that the fee is one-time investment.

“It’s like a gamble but it’s an investment to support this movement. It’s a small investment. And this is an effort worth investing in,” he said.

He said Dekada members are told that the struggle would take long.

“It’s like any investment—like you invest in a political candidate, education, in anything that you hope would improve your life,” he said.

Woodruff said the CNMI happens to be the only U.S. jurisdiction “where majority of the adult population have no say in the government that governs them.”

“That’s because majority of them are aliens, and not U.S. citizens,” he said.

Consequently, these people have no voice in the people who are elected to office and pass laws.

“That’s a very fundamental human rights and equal protection issue and one that I believe could potentially be brought to court,” he said.

Right now, however, Dekada he said is not focused on bringing the issue to the court.

He said the group has two major thrusts: to bring the issue to the CNMI Legislature and the administration as well as to elevate it to the U.S. Congress.

Dekada said that it has 3,000 members, consisting of Filipinos, Bangladeshis, Thais, and Nepalese, among others.

They are nonresident workers who have proof of at least five consecutive years of lawful stay in the Commonwealth.

Dekada is headed by Boni Sagana, whose previous labor case resulted in a major amendment of the CNMI labor regulations to allow multiple job for nonresident workers.