She said she is also supporting the petition campaign of guest workers seeking improved immigration status.
“The purpose of the vigil and the petition is to appeal to President Obama to take administrative action to extend parole-in-place protection to the legal aliens who have been part of our economy, our families, and our community for many years,” she told Variety in an e-mail.
She said while “we continue to push for Congress to pass legislation that will grant these legal aliens a pathway to more permanent status, until that happens, executive action can be taken now to stabilize our workforce and keep our families intact.”
She urged community members to sign the petition requesting Obama to extend protections to the legal aliens in the CNMI.
Rabby Syed, United Workers Movement-NMI president, said the response of Obama to the petition is very important to the guest workers, especially in this time of crisis when some of the nonresidents are jobless already.
He said they are asking the president to grant these legal aliens parole-in-place status with authorization to seek employment.
He believes that the Variety report indicating a need for 6,000 workers for the military buildup on Guam will help persuade Obama to grant their request.
He said they will ask Obama to provide them parole-in-place status qualifying them for employment-based visa applications.
“The fate of legal aliens still present in the CNMI remains unclear, however, and today they live in fear of removal from the CNMI because they lack a permanent U.S. status,” the petition stated.
