Obama urged to protect foreign workers in Northern Marianas

SAN JOSE, Saipan – Thousands of overseas Filipino workers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are urging US President Barack Obama to protect legal foreign workers from mass deportation after November 2011.

Among them is Melquiades “Jun” Concillado, who has been an architect in the CNMI capital of Saipan for 15 years.

He said his children, who are US citizens, may be left behind should he, along with thousands of OFWs, be forced to leave the US territory.

“If nothing is done about the status of legal alien workers here soon, we could all be deported regardless of our value to the economy and regardless of our family situation. I for one will have to be separated from my two daughters who are only 6 and 2 years old. This has been the only home they know, I can’t just take them with me to the Philippines and lose their privileges,” he told GMANews.TV Monday night.

Concillado, who was born in Leyte, is hoping that Obama – who also has two daughters like him – would heed their request.

Almost a year after the US federal government took over CNMI immigration, foreign workers who are legally working in the territory are still uncertain what status would be given to them.

The CNMI, a US territory some three hours by plane from Manila, is home to some 20,000 foreign workers, most of them from the Philippines.

The CNMI heavily relies on foreign workers to run its economy and other public services given by nurses, engineers, architects, teachers, waiters, waitresses, mechanics, hotel staff, and even household helpers.

Workers’ groups in the CNMI will be holding a prayer vigil Tuesday night to drum up support for their cause.

The prayer vigil coincides with a forum on economic and labor development hosted by the US Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, a federal agency with oversight on territories such as the CNMI, Guam, the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The workers, led by the United Workers Movement-NMI, whose members are mostly Filipinos and Bangladeshis, are hoping they would have an audience with US Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas Tony Babauta.

Worker group leaders said they will give a copy of their letter to Obama to Babauta.

Babauta was the same federal official who presented the CNMI government in April a copy of the Interior report recommending the US Congress to grant improved immigration status to long-term foreign workers in the territory, including US citizenship, permanent resident status or a status similar to those given to Freely Associated States citizens.

Aside from the prayer vigil, the foreign workers launched on Tuesday an online petition asking Obama to grant a so-called “parole-in-place status” that will authorize them to seek employment and qualify them for employment-based US visa applications.

The workers said they need such parole-in-place status “until such time a more permanent status is provided” to them by the US Congress, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the State Department, or the Labor Department.

The DHS, lead agency in the implementation of federal immigration in the CNMI, has yet to issue a transitional worker visa and investor visa programs for the CNMI.

“Without a transitional worker visa program mandated by the Consolidated Natural Resources Act (CNRA), none of the CNMI’s legal alien workers can begin the process for obtaining an employment-based visa,” the workers said in their letter to Obama.

Legal foreign workers in the CNMI have US Social Security numbers.

“The fate of legal aliens still present in the CNMI remains unclear, … and today they live in fear of removal from the CNMI because they lack a permanent US status. Many have neither job prospects nor support systems in the countries [of origin] they left behind so long ago,” the workers said.

They said without the transitional worker visa program mandated by the CNRA, none of the CNMI’s legal alien workers can begin the process for obtaining an employment-based visa.

Moreover, the present employment-based H and L visas do not provide relief to the CNMI’s legal alien workers because the jobs they occupy are not temporary as defined in the regulations for these visas.

The EB visas, which provide for petitioning for permanent resident status and, eventually, naturalization, cannot be applied for without US immigration status.

“While we understand that permanent status and a pathway to citizenship for legal aliens in the CNMI may be included in future national comprehensive immigration reform legislation, we plead with you not to wait to grant relief,” the workers said in their letter, even as they ask Obama to “restore the American dream to the 16,000 legal aliens who have made this US Commonwealth their home.”

Foreign workers and their supporters have held countless peaceful marches, prayer vigils and petitions for improved status for years. Most of the foreign workers have been legally residing in the CNMI for over 10 years, while others have been here for over 20 years.

Their work contracts are subject to renewal every year or every two years. — LBG, GMANews.TV