Asian Pacific caucus lauds Obama plan for immigration

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus is applauding President Obama’s push for immigration legislation, including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

“We all know that the time has come to fix our broken immigration system,” the Caucus said in a statement yesterday. “We need the tax revenues from immigrants already working in our country who want to contribute. We need to make sure families are able to stay together, including families with U.S.-born children. We need fair and practical solutions to make immigration work for our nation, our economy, and our families. We are gratified that President Obama has signaled his intention to begin this important debate in the coming weeks.”

A White House official was recently quoted in The New Times, saying Obama plans on addressing the immigration issue within the year. He is expected to speak publicly about the issue next month and convene working groups over the summer, for possible legislation in the fall, according to the article.

Currently, according to CAPAC, there are 1.5 million undocumented immigrants from Asia, as well as 2 million Asians waiting in the family-based visa backlogs.

Immigration is a hot topic in the Commonwealth, as the Northern Marianas prepares for the implementation of the Consolidated Natural Resources Act, which will extend U.S. Immigration laws to the CNMI. The law will go into effect Nov. 28. The Department of Homeland Security has yet to release the regulations relating to foreign workers, investors, students and retirees.

Questions relating to immediate relatives of U.S. citizens remain, and, as it is right now, some legal residents of the Commonwealth who do not have a valid U.S. visa will not be able to re-enter the CNMI if they must leave for a medical emergency or other reason.

“Fundamental to the Immigration and Naturalization Act, and the president has made this statement public in our last meeting with him, Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi has made this, fundamental to Immigration and Naturalization Act in the United States is they unite families and not separate them, and unless something is done about the way they are going to implement the federalized immigration system in the Northern Marianas, we could be separating families in two years,” said CNMI Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan, adding he is doing everything he can to make sure this does not happen.

Sablan has called on DHS to create visas for immediate relatives.

There are also more than 300 permanent residents in the CNMI who have lived here for more than 27 years, the congressman noted.

However, he said, he is not proposing a path to citizenship for everybody, just those who would be eligible at the time.

Last month, more than 1,500 U.S. citizen children of foreign workers, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, long-term guest workers and others in the community wrote personal letters to members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, asking for an improved immigration status for themselves and their families once the transition to federal immigration begins.