MALOU Berueco’s open letter to Delegate Kimberly King-Hinds prompts me to write about the mistreatment of lawful CNMI Long-Term Residents presently occurring and the confusion surrounding renewal of their documentation as CNMI Long-Term Residents.
While I was not aware of the problem of USCIS rejecting C37 EAD renewal applications purportedly on grounds of incorrect fee submissions until I read Ms. Berueco’s letter, I do know that USCIS has for years been unfairly and unnecessarily rejecting petitions and applications (and other documents) while citing reasons that are incomplete, incorrect, opaque, or indecipherable at best.
As for the specific question of how a $520 fee payment for EAD renewal could possibly be wrong, there may be no answer. That is because the fee amount almost certainly is correct unless there was something hidden in HR1, the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill last year.
But the fee problem is merely the “tip of the iceberg,” as they say. There is a much larger issue at play here. As an experienced immigration lawyer and the vice chair of the NMI Democratic Party, I will say that the entire situation is an outrage. Properly speaking, C37 is not a “visa category.” It is a classification code used to document CNMI Long-Term Resident status. And CNMI Long-Term Resident status is not a time-limited status and employment authorization, it the functional equivalent of a CNMI-Only Green Card.
That means it does not expire. Yes, the card expires and needs to be renewed, but the status is permanent. Unfortunately, it appears that under the present U.S. administration USCIS does not understand this. Indeed, the fact that applications are being rejected suggests that current personnel may think that the fee submitted is wrong because they do not recognize the C37 classification as an EAD category at all. This is unsurprising (especially for inexperienced and poorly trained personnel) since technically, it isn’t. C37 is a placeholder code used on the employment authorization document or EAD — the card — to identify the holder as a CNMI Long-Term Resident.
The proof of this point can be found in the Form I-765 instructions on page 16, item 19. The text reads:
“Applicant for Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) Long-Term Resident Status — (c)(37). You must file Form I-765 together with your Form I-955, Application for CNMI Long-Term Resident Status. If your Form I-955 is approved, you will receive an employment authorization document as evidence of your CNMI Long-Term Resident Status and evidence that you are authorized for employment in the CNMI incident to status.”
All of the C37 renewals currently being pursued are for EAD’s issued pursuant to this language. An I-955 was approved, granting the status (much in the same way that a person obtains a Green Card following approval of an I-485), and the C37 EAD was issued to document the status.
CNMI Long-Term Resident status was created by U.S. Public Law 116-24 in 2019. There was a narrow window to apply for the status. For reasons known (or unknown) only to USCIS, a decision was made to document the status with EAD cards with a five-year expiration — in contrast with green cards, which have a 10-year validity. As a consequence, all of the persons in the CNMI currently holding CNMI Long-Term Resident status are right now in need of renewal of their EAD cards and facing this conundrum.
Early in this discussion, I pointed out that C37 is not an actual EAD category, despite being the notation on the card. This needs further explanation. EAD categories are defined by regulation, 8 C.F.R. § 274a.12. Without getting bogged down in complex details, this regulation has three subsections, each of which discusses different classes of noncitizens authorized for employment. The EAD categories follow the subsections: (a), (b), and (c). Subsection (c) is captioned “Aliens who must apply for employment authorization.” As discussed, this heading is a misnomer as applied to CNMI Long-Term Residents.
Nevertheless, it is the subsection that USCIS used to code — apparently as a matter of simple administrative convenience — CNMI Long-Term Residents. But it is not a real classification. Instead, C37 — or more precisely, (c)(37) — was deployed as a mere place holder. This is evident by actually examining the regulation. Running down the enumerated categories in subsection (c), we find – right after (c)(36) – “(37)-(39) [Reserved].” In short, C37 is not an actual EAD category at all. But it does signify CNMI Long-Term Resident status and employment authorization incident to status.
Legally, holders of C37 EADs do not lose their status or employment authorization upon expiration of the EAD card. This is because U.S. Public Law 116-24, the “Northern Mariana Islands Long Term Legal Residents Relief Act,” explicitly provides that employment is authorized “incident to status.” As the status does not expire, neither does the employment authorization.
CNMI Long-Term Resident status does not expire because the law, codified in the U.S. Code at 48 U.S.C. § 1806(e)(6), says that it continues until the holder stops residing in CNMI or violates the conditions of the status. That means anyone granted CNMI Long-Term Resident status continues to have that status until it is shown that they lost it.
This is just like a Green Card. Lawful permanent resident status does not expire, even though the Green Card itself does. The card is simply evidence of the status; possession of a currently valid green card is not a condition to having the status.
It is not a legal requirement that a CNMI Long-Term residents renew their EAD in order to maintain employment authorization. Employers are not violating the law by continuing to employ CNMI Long-Term Residents who submitted proper documentation at the time they were hired. This is because the statute creating CNMI Long-Term Resident status explicitly states provides that employment is authorized “incident to status.”
Ms. Berueco’s letter also makes the very modest request of 180-day extensions of employment authorizations. As discussed above, extension actually is unnecessary because the authorization does not expire with the card — it is incident to status. And the status is not dependent on the card.
In any case, USCIS regulations entitle anyone who made a timely renewal application before October 30, 2025, to an automatic extension of employment authorization of 540 days. See 8 C.F.R. § 274a.13(d). The regulation explicitly states: “An Employment Authorization Document (Form I-766) that has expired on its face is considered unexpired when combined with a Notice of Action (Form I-797C), which demonstrates that the requirements of . . . this section have been met.”
STEPHEN C. WOODRUFF
Saipan, CNMI
