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Group appeals to Immigration to include 4 IR categories
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Posted on Nov 23 2008
The United Workers Movement is appealing to the CNMI Division of Immigration to include four categories in the proposed amendments to allow for two-year permit for persons with Immediate Relative status.
The four categories are the following: a) Immediate relatives of Freely associated State citizens; b) Immediate relatives of qualified guest workers; c) Immediate relatives of CNMI permanent residents; and d) Immediate relatives of American Samoans.
UWM president Irene N. Tantiado Saturday said that although individuals on the fourth category are not that much, they must also be entitled to be included in the proposed amendments
Tantiado is wary that due to time constraints they would not be able to run a signature campaign to support this appeal.
The deadline to submit comments to Immigration is on Monday, Nov. 24.
“We hope the CNMI Immigration Division will consider our request especially because these people have helped the businesses in the sense that the employers do not pay to process their entry unlike the guest workers,” Tantiado said.
She said that most of them have been here for 10 to 15 and some are more than 20 years.
In a related development, the U.S. Consul General for FSM, CNMI, and Guam Gerson Jackson, who earlier vowed to help in finding solutions to some of these issues, informed UWM that his counterpart from Palau, Consul General Jeff Kenty, recommended that they contact the Palau Representative in the CNMI, Eileen Kintol, to assist the group.
Citing provisions of the law, Jackson noted that Sections 141 and 142 of Article IV of Title One of the amended Compact Treaty, which was enabled by U.S. Public Law No. 108-188, “carry somewhat succinct languages/provisions that pretty much defined the right and privileges of FAS citizens and their Immediate Relatives under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.”
He said that under Section 141[a][3] these IRs must be actual residents of any of the three FAS Entities for at least five years before they can be even considered for some of the privileges.
