Pinoys in Marianas told not to lose hope on ‘green card’

SAN JOSE, Saipan – A visiting Florida-based human rights advocate has said that Filipinos and other foreign workers in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) should not lose hope on having granted “green card" or a lawful permanent residency. A law signed by President George W. Bush in May puts CNMI immigration under federal control as early as June 2009. Those critical of the law, led by CNMI Governor Benigno R. Fitial, say a change in foreign workers’ immigration status or a grant of green card is impossible under a federal system. The CNMI, a 14-island US territory in the Western Pacific, is home to some 19,000 documented foreign workers mostly Filipinos and Chinese. Human rights advocate Wendy Doromal, a former teacher on the island of Rota, said she believes the granting of green cards to long-term foreign workers will happen before 2014 or the end of the transition period. “If you really think about it, they (CNMI government) always say there will be zero guest workers by 2014. Of course, because they won’t be thought of as guest workers anymore because they’ll be green card holders…That’s my belief," Doromal told GMANews.TV in an interview Tuesday night after a meeting with a small group of nonresident workers. Fitial, who is married to a Filipina from Nueva Ecija, is planning to sue the US government for putting the islands’ immigration under federal control, citing economic disaster and the deportation of all foreign workers whom the islands depend on mostly for private sector jobs. But the Fitial administration is opposed to granting green cards to foreign workers. Most foreign workers in the CNMI earn a minimum wage of $4.05 an hour. Due to economic uncertainties, their work hours have been reduced by as much as eight hours a week and many employers now deduct from their workers’ paychecks up to $100 a month for housing. Doromal said “every long-term guest worker should be afforded social and political rights and should be provided a pathway to (US) citizenship." “Every long-term guest worker should be given a green card," she said. Doromal, along with her daughter Nani, is currently in the CNMI meeting with and interviewing thousands of foreign workers and their families about their conditions and hopes for the new law applying federal immigration in the CNMI. The information she will gather will be presented to federal officials, including the US Department of Homeland Security along with members of the US Congress, for consideration in the drafting of the regulations governing the “federalization" law, now Public Law 110-229. Doromal said every nonresident worker who is a parent of a US citizen should also be given a green card. “I think that for any guest worker program to be effective, just and democratic, it has to provide a pathway to citizenship. And to me, anything less is one notch below slavery and because you’re an indentured servant and you’re disenfranchised, you’re always an underclass without political rights and I think it’s especially evil that underclass makes up the majority of the adult population," said Doromal, whose husband is from Iloilo in the Philippines. In 2000, two key US senators introduced legislation with a provision granting green cards to foreign workers in the CNMI that unanimously passed the Senate. “That’s the (original) federalization bill. The (CNMI) government hired Jack Abramoff to kill it," Doromal said. Abramoff, a former Washington, DC-based lobbyist, is now in jail for defrauding American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials, and for fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos. Doromal is also critical of the CNMI labor system, saying it considers labor cases settled when an administrative order has been issued. “To me, it’s not settled until that order is followed. If there’s unpaid wages and if they’re not in the hands of persons owed those wages, that case is unsettled. The CNMI labor system is dysfunctional because they’ve never really enforced their judgments, administrative orders. I don’t think that will happen under the federal system that’s why I support a federal system," she said. The CNMI Department of Labor has been able to close thousands of labor cases dating as far back as 10 years ago under the Fitial administration. But there is at least $1.6 million in unpaid wages owed to guest workers based on initial information gathered by the Federal Labor Ombudsman’s Office. Foreign worker groups in the CNMI are not only focused on the immigration status of long-term guest workers, but also on the status of parents of US citizen children, a system of speedy processing for guest workers who qualify for H-1 and H-2 visas, the application of the US asylum laws to the CNMI, and a just federal guest worker program. Irene Tantiado, president of the Coalition of United Workers (NMI), also called on her fellow nonresident workers not to lose hope about having a better immigration status. “It may not happen next year but eventually, it will happen. The bigger question is, ‘how would you be able to stay in the CNMI to see that happen?’" said Tantiado, an accountant from Cebu. Jerry Custodio, from Tacloban and president of the Human Dignity Movement, said many long-time Filipinos and other Asian workers have been forced to go back home when their yearly contract was not renewed. Death threats In a related news, Tantiado said she has been receiving death threats because of her foreign worker rights’ advocacy. The latest was on Monday night when Tantiado received a call from an individual whom she thought was a leader of a workers’ group she was supposed to meet. She was led to a secluded area and when she thought she was being set up, she sped away and reported the incident to the police. “The police said it still does not constitute death threat... And the caller also dropped the names of other Filipino leaders like Bonifacio Sagana and Jerry Custodio," she said. - GMANews.TV