The outreach was conducted by USCIS officials led by Honolulu District Director David G. Gulick to explain the CW transitional worker rule.
It was Glory Anne Asistores and Eufemio “Niño” Feria, leaders of the U.S. citizen children group, who posed questions about their parents’ immigration status.
Sablan was greeted with applause as he stood to answer the group’s questions.
Prior to the start of the meeting, the U.S. citizen children gathered outside the center and held placards expressing their sentiments about their parents’ immigration status.
Nonresidents who attended the outreach also signed a petition at the entrance of the center.
Asistores, a Marianas High School student, told Variety that she initiated their movement Facebook without prodding from any group.
“Why are they deporting people who have no jobs, and why won’t they give jobs to the people when there are jobs available?” she asked, referring to parents of U.S. citizen children who have no work and will lose their legal immigration status after Nov. 27, 2011.
Asistores said she and other U.S. citizen children have been gathering signatures for their petition.
More than 200 U.S. citizen children have already signified their support, she added.
“We only want our parents to be given parole-in-place that would be valid until their children reach 21 years old so we can stay together as a family,” she said.
She said she reached out to other U.S. citizen children because “my friends are my family too.”
“I learned from our school about government, about democracy, and why they are so unfair to our parents. Where’s the freedom here?” she asked.
Feria believes that their movement will have a “big impact.”
“This will re-define what democracy is on island,” he said.
“We face our problems with our parents. If they are taken away from us, it will affect our future. They are our parents,” Feria said.
A long-term guest worker who brought his three-year-old son to USCIS outreach, expressed support for the movement of Aristores and Feria.
“This is for the unity of families,” the guest worker said.
Hector Sevilla, past president of the Marianas Association of Filipino Engineers and Architects, said: “I believe there’s going to be a big impact with this movement. The children just want to uphold their rights and the rights of the parents.”
Parents Manny Vilaga, Jyt Ramos, Jerry de Guzman asked: “We come here legally. Why would they deport us?”
They said what the children are doing “is not only for their parents, but also for their future.”
Sablan said his bill, H.R. 1466, will grant CNMI-only resident status to CNMI permanent residents, those born in the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974 and Jan. 9, 1978, immediate relatives of U.S. and Freely Associated States citizens, and parents of U.S. citizen children.
He said his bill aims to get the support of the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“H.R. 1466 has been worked on for over two years in the Congress by the Republicans and Democrats in the House and in the Senate, and it is the best thing that they will consider,” he added.
“I don’t control the Congress of the United States. But I have met the president of the U.S. and asked him to consider this,” he said.
“Let me put it this way because I am the one in Congress who deal with other members of Congress who at this point in time do not want to deal with anything having to do with immigration,” he added. “So here’s the choice. I will include everyone and guarantee the bill would die, or I will work on H.R. 1466, and pass it so that some people will get something. Tell me what you want me to do: include everybody and no one gets anything? I am asking you a question.”
Sablan said he understands what the U.S. citizen children want but it’s not only him who has to decide on the issue.
“I go to Washington and I work. I am not playing around and I am not joking. This is a matter of importance for all of us here,” he said.
“I am the one there and I need to do my job without having to listen to 16,000 different interpretations of what I am trying to do because it wastes our time and resources. I have staff here and I told them it’s getting to the point that I’m putting more resources and energy on these things than on a lot of other things that I should be doing, and that’s not fair to everyone else who are not covered by H.R. 1466,” he added.
“Anyone here who is unhappy with [the bill], I am going to tell this much: it is the best thing that we can get Congress to pass. It is the work of both Republicans and Democrats in the House and in the Senate,” he said.
“I stood before you before and I’ve always said that I can’t help everyone and that’s just the fact of life.”
In a separate interview on Wednesday, Sablan said he continues to urge the Department of Homeland Security to find a way so that nonresidents with U.S. citizen family members can stay here beyond Nov. 27, when their umbrella permits expire.
“I brought it up to President Obama, too, face to face,” he said, referring to a recent meeting at the White House.
Sablan said he does not think his bill, H.R. 1466 which will grant certain nonresidents CNMI-only status, will become law by November, “but obviously there are other ways to address this.”
He said Obama and other federal officials “are aware of the situation here.”
He added, “They are, of course, in a bureaucracy and they have to live within the rules and regulations but there are ways to do this and in my opinion they have been trying to be as accommodating as possible during this transition period.”
Ask how DHS can address the concerns of nonresidents with U.S. citizen children, Sablan said “I don’t have the answers right now and I don’t think they [DHS] have the answers right now but I know they are looking into ways to do this.”
“These are families and we cannot just break them apart,” he added.
Sablan also disclosed that he and the 47 co-sponsors of his bill are urging for the “mark up” of H.R. 1466, which means the measure will be placed on the table for amendments, further discussions and a vote.
“If we can do it next week, I’d like to do it next week,” he said, assuring that the measure is moving forward.
Sablan said as a result of the “continuous push” by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Progressive Caucus, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued the Morton memo which “calls on ICE attorneys and employees to refrain from pursuing non-citizens with close family, educational, military, or other ties in the U.S. and instead spend the agency’s limited resources on persons who pose a serious threat to public safety or national security.”
That also applies to the CNMI, he added.
