The campaign will encourage different categories of nonresidents and immediate relatives of U.S. and FAS citizens to express their concern, Rabby Syed, the movement’s president, said.
Syed said they will ask guest workers, U.S. citizen children of foreign contract workers, spouses and children of citizens of the Freely Associated States, alien spouses and children of U.S. citizens, CNMI permanent residents, widows and widowers of U.S. citizen spouses, and nonresidents divorced from their U.S. citizen spouses to join the campaign.
“Letters from supportive resident relatives, friends, and employers of foreign contract workers and others among the various non-resident categories are also encouraged and welcomed,” he added.
Doromal, in her part, said the goal of the letter writing campaign is to put a face on the foreign contract workers and other nonresidents who call the CNMI their home.
“The officials drafting regulations are thousands of miles from the CNMI and have not met with these people directly. The letters will give them a chance to get a clearer picture of who the people affected by the [federalization law] are, the contributions that they make to the community, and why they call the commonwealth home,” Doromal said.
She said the campaign will give voice to the huge population of CNMI nonresidents who are not represented, and have no vote in matters that impact their lives and the lives of their children and families.
U.S. citizen children and alien children of foreign contract workers and others are encouraged to submit hand-written letters, she said, adding that the letter writers will have an opportunity to ask the federal government to consider permanent status, including green card status and a pathway to U.S. citizenship, for the above mentioned categories of people.
Syed said the letters will be scanned and e-mailed to Doromal as they are received, and the originals will be mailed to her.
Doromal, a former Rota teacher now based in Florida, will then personally hand-deliver them to various U.S. departments and congressional committees that are directly involved in drafting policy and regulations for the federalization law.
Syed said their group will be organizing meetings to write and collect the letters.
He said that guest worker leaders on Rota and Tinian will also be organizing and distributing information regarding the letter writing campaign to nonresidents on those islands.
All groups that represent foreign contract workers or nonresidents are invited to help organize the letter-writing campaigns, Syed said.
