By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

OVER 1,000 nonresident workers who have U.S. citizen children filled out survey forms to support the Dekada movement’s request to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to grant permanent residency status to long-term guest workers in the CNMI, especially those who have children born here.
Hundreds more nonresident parents are expected to register their U.S. citizen children from 5:30 to 7 p.m. today in the lobby of the Nauru Building in Susupe, according to Dekada president Bonifacio Sagana.
All children born in the CNMI, a U.S. insular area, are American citizens.
“When Mr. (Allen) Stayman and (Josh) Johnson were here, they asked us about the number of long-term workers here, and those with children born here. We told them we would do a survey and that’s what we did last Sunday and we’ll hold another one on Tuesday. You don’t need to be a Dekada member to register your children,” Sagana said in a telephone interview yesterday.
U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources staffers Stayman and Johnson were here from Feb. 24 to 27 to gather input related to the plan to federalize the CNMI immigration system, and as a follow-up to the oversight hearing on the CNMI held in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 8.
Sagana said the data collected from the survey of nonresident parents with children born here will be sent to Stayman and Johnson by the end of this month.
“This will be part of the package to U.S. Congress that will help in obtaining benefits or eligibility for improved status or green cards (for long-term alien workers),” Sagana said in a separate one-page statement.
Dekada, according to Sagana, assumes that about 25 percent of the 27,000 alien workers have children who were born here.
“About 80 percent of those are Filipinos who have an average of two children,” said Sagana, who also has two sons born here — a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old.
For seven hours on Sunday at the Nauru Building, Dekada held a registration for nonresident parents with U.S. citizen children. They included workers from the Philippines, China, Nepal, South Korea, Bangladesh, Thailand, and India, among other countries.
“We expect the number of registered parents to reach 1,500. As of Sunday, there were 312 Dekada members who registered their children, plus 735 who were not Dekada members. We got 10 forms from Rota and by Tuesday night, there will be more,” said Sagana.
As of noon yesterday, 10 more survey forms from Rota were received by Dekada. Those from Tinian were expected shortly.
Sagana said the registration is free of charge.
“We want to make it clear that there are no fees being collected for registering their children who are U.S. citizens. Just come by the Nauru Building and fill out the survey form. You don’t have to pay anything. It’s free,” said Sagana.
He said the U.S. citizen children of these guest workers are the ones who suffer the most when their parents are forced to go back to their home countries after the expiration of their contracts.
“They can’t leave their children so they take them back to their countries, thereby losing the benefits of being a U.S. citizen. But if these workers had permanent resident status, they could take care of their children here, and have them study here,” said Sagana.
The survey form asks the name of the mother and father, contact number and address, the number of years the parents have stayed in the CNMI, the names and ages of their children, as well as their passport numbers.
Since January, Dekada has been holding peaceful rallies to show support for the federal minimum wage hike bill, as well as the plan to federalize the CNMI immigration system, thinking that such legislation will help them realize their goal of permanent resident status for long-guest workers in the commonwealth.