House waits for unified position on CW issue

Contract workers display signs showing the many years they have lived and worked in the CNMI at a meeting of the House of Representatives on the current labor crisis yesterday. (OFFICE OF GOVERNOR)

Calling it “premature,” House Speaker Ralph Demapan (R-Saipan) said it’s too early too come up with a unified position from the House of Representatives on a stance on current contract worker issues even as Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and his team made their case clear in Washington, D.C. for an extension of the contract worker program past 2019 and improved status for longtime guest workers this week.

Demapan said he would like to ask Rep. Angel Demapan (R-Saipan) and Senate vice president Arnold Palacios (R-Saipan) to have an audience with the Legislature to appraise them on the outcome of the “Section 902” talks with federal officials in the nation’s capitol.

“That’s basically it. It’s just too early to come up with a unified position. The meeting is ongoing and it’s premature for us to even to come up with a recommendation until we hear better or definitive information from our panel.”

“But we will continue to brainstorm and see how we can best approach an issue,” he added.

Demapan spoke to reporters after a House meeting where lawmakers discussed the ongoing crisis of a breached contract worker cap that prompted the federal government to stop accepting permits after an early May deadline and to reject these and force workers who did not meet the cap and their families to leave within 10-days after their permits expire.

The move is expected to force about 1,300 affected employees to leave the Commonwealth from May to October, the end of the fiscal year.

Despite hesitating on taking an official stand on the issue, lawmakers expressed their concern with the plight of contract workers and agreed with and echoed concerns that this was a humanitarian crisis expected to uproot families and workers who’ve contributed to the economy for years.

During the meeting yesterday, contract workers in the House chamber and gallery held up signs with the number of years they’ve been on island.

One of these workers, Janet Hernando, has been on island for 25 years, and says she’s been urging friends and families of those affected to not panic even as they plan to leave the island.

“They’re planning [to leave]. But I tell them please don’t go yet because you don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said after the House meeting.

“I’ve been here the longest time and I know the ups and downs of Saipan and there’s always a remedy to this I believe. Because local people, I know they need us contract workers because we’ve been living and staying here. This is our second home. We would not be here if we did not love Saipan. I’ve sacrificed my family, I’ve seen my nephews, and their family grow up too.”

Hernando says she works on island to give back home in the Philippines and would like to continue doing so.

Asked what she would like the government to support amid the labor issues, Hernando said, “Improved status.”

“I’ve been here 25 years. I think I’m entitled for just the resident [status]. I am not after the green card not yet. Just to stay here. To continue living and working. I am supporting my family back home. I’m helping them so that’s all I need.

“I pay my tax. I don’t have any bad record,” she went on to say. “I don’t have any criminal case. I’m totally clean. I just feel that anyone who is like me should be given improved status.”

‘Improve status’ and meeting with USCIS

Saipan Tribune revealed on Wednesday that Torres had asked the White House’s support for improved status or a path to lawful permanent residency in meetings with President Obama’s special representative and Department of Interior assistant secretary for Insular Area Esther Kia’aina and in the position paper submitted to the federal government on labor and immigration issues.

Still, Speaker Demapan said they would like to continue discussing the issue.

“The improved status has been discussed back in the 17th Legislature. Again, that is something that the Legislature would have to continue to discuss…if it’s leaning toward that position I cannot just unilaterally recommend that because that requires the body to discuss and sit down and see whether that would be the best approach.”

He added there was “nothing definite yet” but he feels “sorry for these people who’ve been here long time ago.”

House fiscal chair Rep. Antonio Sablan (Ind-Saipan) also said all stakeholder should be gathered to make sure they come to a unified position on all the different labor issues and the 2019 extension, and if the government is going to push for an adjustment for the 2016 cap because “we obviously can’t expect the 1,300 estimated affected individuals to get up and leave in 10 days.”

“But that’s just counting the workers,” he added. “You gotta take it into consideration the whole families” who’ve “been here 15 to 25 years and all that.”

He said he hopes the governor and the 902 talks team comes back and calls for a joint leadership meeting between the House and Senate, the Department of Labor, his administration, and the business sector to provide an update “on what was agreed upon and discussed” and then assess “what to do.”

Demapan said he will write a letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services district director David Gulick to request an audience with him on the issue.

“We want to hear it directly from Mr. Gulick so we can see how we can best approach…I see it’s a federal matter and” and extension of the CW program “requires a Congressional action but what we are trying to do here is to come up with a position so we can assist our delegate [Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan] to whatever he intends to do,” Demapan said.

Demapan and Sablan are former local immigration officials.

Delegate Sablan, for his part, has said he will introduce a bill to extend the contract worker program for 10 years with a 18,000 worker cap.

But it’s unclear right not how Torres’ shift of position would accommodate a request for improved status in the 902 position paper and in talking with federal officials may affect Sablan’s proposal. Sablan and Torres have earlier indicated a desire that the “language” for both their efforts through the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch be in line with each other.

Rep. Antonio Sablan also wants to hear directly from an authorized representative of USCIS instead of getting “our piecemeal information from various sources.”

He said that even the “so-called clarification” that was reported from USCIS yesterday still left a lot of questions. USCIS released a notice on Tuesday that workers under the 2016 cap could file for extensions or for change of employees, which was taken as nothing new for those who wanted to hear adjustments for the 1,300 affected employees who missed the 2016 cap and would have to leave.

With regards to the cap, Sablan suggested the cap was not tracked correctly.

“I think somebody failed to keep a running” tally “and monitor the numbers that were being issued,” he said. “I think it was months ago that they had reached it and they should have stopped it back then. But it seems they’ve continued to issue [permits] beyond the 12,999” cap. He believes that otherwise, USCIS would have authorized the renewal of the 1,300 affected, if they hadn’t issued permit beyond the cap.

CW Rally on Sunday

Mami Ikeda, along with other contract workers at the House yesterday, are urging supporters to come out to a rally at Kilili Beach at 3pm Sunday on the current issues.

Ikeda said some of the affected workers have already left the Commonwealth.

Ikeda, who first came to Saipan in the 1970s, earns her living in processing documents and also is an active volunteer, helping out in various groups after the devastating Typhoon Soudelor.

Ikeda says she does not do this because she wants something, she does it because “this is my home.”

“I want to help people. But it’s just sad. This is what I think—the government here created the contract worker program because they need a workforce. They started it. And if something happens [to the program], we need them to back us up.”

That’s what happened or did not happen with the CNMI permanent residents, Ikeda said, recalling how her deceased brother and father, who were given permanent residency by the CNMI government, were devastated when the federal government took over local immigration.

“They became parolees,” she said, “which is a status-less people. These are people who were treated like U.S. citizens up until federalization came. And he was so mad…he was so pissed off that he had to take one month off from work simply because he’s [employment authorization document] was delayed and here were all his co-workers who were CWs working…He was devastated.

“He was trying to get some kind of status for himself. Dad passed away first and then he died as a parolee.”

Train locals

Meantime, Demapan urged that businesses renew focus in training local workers.

“I personally would like to recommend and suggest to our businesses to start investing more and continue investing more on trainings. Because of this uncertainty, we have to continue investing more on trainings to try to maximize those employees to try and cover those [employees] lost and work closely with our [Northern Marianas College and Northern Marianas Technical Institute] so they can easily address the shortage of manpower

“…It appear to be late because the 2019 [expiration of the CW program] date is looming but you know you got to start to be doing this but you know this is the alternative that should be done rather than waiting for a last minute,” he added.