Alien workers charge NAP with discrimination

Foreign workers in the Commonwealth are charging the local food stamp office with discrimination, saying its staff has repeatedly withheld food stamps from them based on their alien status.

The food stamp program, operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is required under federal law to distribute the stamps without regard to the recipient’s national origin, as noted in several large posters adorning the walls of the program’s office in As Lito.

Food stamps are a critical source of support for many foreign workers who have disputes pending with the Department of Labor, according to local activists, because the temporary worker authorization the department gives them until the dispute is resolved labels them as a troublemaker in the eyes of many new employers when they apply for new jobs, thereby preventing them from working.

Yet foreign workers—speaking on the condition of anonymity due to fears the local food stamp offices will cause them further problems—disclosed in interviews last week that they have faced a pattern of bureaucratic delays and discrimination when attempting to collect food stamp payments.

“Some of us have already given up because they give you such a hard time depending on your status” as a foreigner, said a 42-year-old former mechanic from the Philippines who has now waited through more than half of June for the $86 in food stamps he receives each month to feed his two children.

With each visit to the food stamp office, its staff have pushed back the schedule for this meager payment and ordered him to provide a host of papers that the office later lost and demanded again, he said.

Meanwhile, he added, most U.S. citizens “especially those from here, just walk [into the office] and say “Hi” and get paid,” he added.

A 38-year-old Filipino mother of two and former garment factory worker shared a similar story, saying that she has repeatedly received less in food stamps than recipients who are citizens and have the same number of children.

“Local people are receiving more than me but they have the same number of babies that I have,” she said, adding that many citizens who get more food stamps than her also have jobs—a factor that should reduce their payments—while she remains unemployed because of a labor dispute. “This is discrimination. It makes me angry. It makes me sad. People say that locals get more because they are citizens, but my baby is a U.S. citizen. So why are they giving me less?”

Many more foreign workers have reported discriminatory practices among local food stamp offices, including the offices on Tinian and Rota, according to labor activists.

Irene Tantiado, president of the Coalition of United Workers, a local labor group, said her group has received a slew of complaints from foreign contract workers about food stamp offices.

“We hear about it,” she said. “It’s sad to think that there might be this kind of discrimination, but we hear about it a lot.”

Officials with the food stamp office did not immediately respond to several requests for comment yesterday.