“The fight continues and I will stand with all of you until the last foreign worker receives justice. I will fight by your side until the guest worker program is reformed to replace the turnstile system with one that regards foreign workers as future citizens, not as disposable items of foreign trade,” she said.
In an email, Doromal said the fight did not end after Nov. 27 when the umbrella permit given by the CNMI government to nonresidents expired.
All foreign workers should stand proud for their immeasurable and valuable contributions to the entire CNMI community, the former Rota teacher said.
“They should take the time to celebrate the heroic efforts that they put forth with much sacrifice, and despite powerful opposition, in the long and difficult fight for their rights, justice and freedom,” she added.
Doromal said she will continue to write reports, letters and testimony and will not stop appealing to federal officials until every foreign worker who steps on U.S. soil is treated with dignity, respect, and fairness.
Foreign workers should be proud of their collective efforts to educate and appeal to a “mostly deaf U.S. Congress and mostly bureaucratic and unresponsive U.S. departments,” she said.
Despite the “attacks from CNMI elected leaders and racist community members,” she said nonresident workers fought on to educate, open hearts and bring more and more people to their side each year.
“Despite being penniless and fighting against the rich and powerful, much has been accomplished. We are not there yet,” she said.
Doromal reiterated the statement she made during the Unity March on Saipan in Dec. 2007: “Social justice and true reform cannot be achieved merely through legislation. It will be achieved through changing people’s hearts, through speaking out, and through education. Never stop speaking out for your rights. Speak out and stand firm for justice and for political rights for yourselves and your children. I stand united with you always.”
When asked about Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s plan to stop U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from granting parole up to Dec. 31, 2012 to the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and CNMI permanent residents, she said the governor not only lacks a heart, but he lacks memory.
Doromal said it was Fitial who argued in his anti-federalization lawsuit that the foreign workers must remain in the CNMI for the sake of the island economy.
“In fact, this governor bragged that he authored the original CNMI labor act that opened the floodgates to foreign workers bringing in so many foreign workers that the indigenous people became a minority in their land,” she said.
She said the governor needs to own the fact that he supported the annual renewal of contracts that made it possible for the foreign workers to remain in the CNMI for years and decades.
“It is by his actions that the majority of the foreign workers became de facto citizens and deserving of permanent residency status,” she added.
Doromal said any plan to stop USCIS will be another futile attempt that will end in failure and a further waste in taxpayer money.
The governor should be supporting permanent residency for all legal, long-term foreign workers so those who have jobs can remain in the CNMI and those without jobs can leave for the United States, she added.
Doromal also said that U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan “needs to grow his heart.”
“Sablan is not a hero to the foreign workers. Those who hold the power to help all, but purposelessly, for political reasons, exclude three quarters and help only one quarter in a way that continues their oppression and keeps them as second-class citizens have no reason to brag,” she said.
She added that it is unacceptable that Sablan supports a higher status and higher level of justice for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the states than he does for the 16,000 foreign workers that have been fellow community members for decades.
