US Senate bill allows long-time Pinoy workers in Northern Marianas to apply for ‘green card’

SAIPAN, CNMI – Thousands of Filipinos who have been legally working in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) since at least 2003 could be eligible to apply for US permanent resident status or “green card” five years after the signing into law of a comprehensive immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate’s “Gang of Eight” released last week.

“Green card” is a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

The bill, however, is yet to pass the full U.S. Senate and could face tough battles in the U.S. House of Representatives before reaching President Barack Obama’s desk if at all.

It is the same bill that provides pathway to U.S. citizenship to some 11 million undocumented illegal immigrants in the United States.

This makes it the most ambitious immigration reform proposal in the nation in three decades.

Ronald Saturno, a 44-year-old worker from Pangasinan Province in the Philippines, said he has been working in the CNMI since 1988 and has long been hoping for an improved immigration status.

“Ilang dekada na ako dito, pero ganun pa rin ang sitwasyon ko.  Kung din a ma-renew ang kontrata ko, papauwiin nila ako, paano naman ang mga anak ko dito?  Sa tagal ko na dito sa CNMI, sana nga maipasa itong bill na ‘to,” Saturno told GMA News Online.

Saturno is one of the over 12,000 foreign workers in the CNMI that remain at the mercy of their employers year after year when their employment contract is up for renewal, even if they have already spent most of their working lives in the CNMI.

Most of the legal, long-term foreign workers in the CNMI are Filipinos.

They have taken up many of the private sector jobs conceivable on the islands – nurses, teachers, engineers, architects, auditors, accountants, journalists, clerks, auto mechanics, electricians, carpenters, masons, beauticians, farmers, restaurant servers, hotel employees, and house workers, among other jobs.

‘Not an amnesty’

The CNMI-specific provision in the U.S. Senate bill consists of only four pages, starting on page 144, of an 844-page immigration proposal.

It does not grant amnesty to illegal foreign workers in the CNMI, making this provision in the bill a unique one.  It only applies to legal, long-term workers in the CNMI.

The CNMI is a U.S. territory in the Western Pacific near Guam.  It is some three hours away from the Philippines.

Unlike other U.S. states and territories such as Guam, the CNMI does not grant “green card” to its legal foreign workers even after five, 10 or more years.  This, even after the U.S. federal government took over control of CNMI immigration in 2009.

The CNMI’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), has been working since 2009 to improve the status of long-term foreign workers in the CNMI.

His previous standalone bill in U.S. Congress, H.R. 1466, did not pass but this time around, he succeeded in having a CNMI-specific provision in the U.S. Senate’s

If the U.S. Senate bill becomes law, it will allow six groups of long-term foreigners in the CNMI to “apply” for a so-called CNMI-only permanent resident status within months of the bill's enactment into law.

The CNMI-only permanent resident status comes with the right of entry and exit from the CNMI.

This in itself is welcome news for many Filipino workers who need to apply for required travel documents every time they go off-island, even for emergency reason.

After a five-year waiting period, these Filipinos with CNMI-only permanent resident status could start “applying” for a U.S. permanent resident status or “green card,” pathway to U.S. citizenship.

A CNMI House of Representatives member, Tony Sablan, said if the bill could still be changed, he hopes that the five-year waiting period will be removed so that once the U.S. Senate bill becomes law, eligible foreign workers could start applying for “green card.”

“Why do they need to wait for five more years?  I know that this is compromise but if they can still change it, I hope they would.  This bill covers those who have been here at least since 2003.  That means they have been here legally working for 10 years now.  They have already earned their worth, they’re part of this community.  Why impose five more years?” he said.  Sablan is a former CNMI immigration director.

CNMI Governor Eloy S. Inos also supports the U.S. Senate bill, titled “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act.”

But at this stage, he said the bill's CNMI-specific language could still be changed.

“That bill still has a long way to go,” he told GMA News.

If and when the current transitional Commonwealth-only worker program is extended by five years after its Dec. 31, 2014 expiration, this would allow the CNMI to have continued access to over 12,000 skilled and professional foreign workers eligible to apply for both a CNMI-only permanent resident status and U.S. permanent resident status.

Who are eligible?

There are six groups of aliens eligible for a CNMI-only permanent resident status.

First group: Those persons born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974, and Jan. 9, 1978.

Second group: Those persons granted CNMI permanent resident status under CNMI immigration law.

Third group: The spouse or child of the first and second groups.

Fourth group: The immediate family members of U.S. citizens, regardless of age.

Fifth group: Foreign workers in the CNMI that were admitted under CNMI immigration law five years prior to May 8, 2008, and are presently resident under CW-1 status.

Sixth group: The spouse and children of individuals in the fifth group.

The first four groups were covered in Sablan's H.R. 1466 in the previous Congress.

Sablan added two more groups to his original bill that became part of the U.S. Senate legislation, making it a “broader” version of H.R. 1466.

The bill is available at http://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=b0a97f73-03ff-40a3-9910-45286495cf42.

Exclusion

The U.S. Senate bill excludes from eligibility for adjustment of status those who are illegally present in the CNMI.

Individuals granted CNMI-only permanent resident status are not eligible for public assistance for which they are not otherwise entitled.

Citizens of the Freely Associated States or those from Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia's Pohnpei, Chuuk, Yap, and Kosrae, are also excluded from eligibility to adjust status under this bill.

Carlito Marquez, a worker advocate and a long-time nonresident worker in the CNMI, said he's “very hopeful and glad that finally, the comprehensive immigration reform bill is moving forward.”

Marquez, an engineer from the Philippines, has been advocating for improved status for long-term alien workers in the CNMI “and the same is true with the rest of our compatriots.”

'CNMI's best chance'

Florida-based human rights activist and former CNMI teacher Wendy Doromal said while the CNMI-specific language as well as the whole bill in itself is not perfect, it represents the provision that has the “best chance of satisfying the many competing interests in the CNMI and of passing the U.S. Congress.”

“At the very least, we should be encouraged that the Senate has included such a beneficial CNMI provision and should remain hopeful that the House will have the wisdom to follow suit,” she said.

The CNMI’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Sablan, said the U.S. Senate bill recognizes that foreign workers are not just workers – “they are taxpayers and consumers.”

“Our population has already dropped from 80,000 to 50,000; we can’t afford to lose any more people. So the Senate bill allows long-term workers, who have been here since at least 2003, to stay as long as they want. They can work. They can travel. Then – after another five years contributing to life in the Northern Marianas – they can apply for U.S. permanent resident status, if they want to. That’s fair. It’s good for our economy. And it will help end the years of confusion and argument about immigration in the Northern Mariana Islands,” he said in a statement. - VVP, GMA News