Antonio Quiambao said he and the other guest workers on Rota want an improved immigration status that will lead to a green card and U.S. citizenship.
“It’s not true that we are content with a ‘stable’ immigration status that will help us remain in the CNMI,” he said.
Senate Vice President Jude U. Hofschneider, R-Tinian and the committee chairman, was quoted by the Saipan Tribune as saying that “most of the nonresident workers who were at the hearing just wanted a stable status and direction. They didn’t really say whether they want U.S. citizenship or green card, but any status that will help them stabilize their plan to remain in the CNMI.”
Paul Quiroz, another long-time nonresident worker on Rota, said they oppose the Senate draft recommendation for the granting of CNMI residency to qualified nonresident workers in 2013.
“The real sentiment of the nonresident workers, especially those who have been here for a long time, is to have a green card,” he said.
Quiambao and Quiroz said there were 30 individuals, including locals, who attended the Rota hearing conducted on Feb. 18.
However, Quiroz said most of the nonresident workers later left because “they were disappointed with what the Senate committee was telling them.”
This Thursday, the Senate will conduct another public hearing, this time at the multi-purpose center on Saipan.
The public hearing on Tinian is scheduled for Friday.
Human Dignity Movement president Itos Feliciano said his group is joining the United Workers Movement and other nonresidents in inviting “all of our members, nonresidents and supporters to attend the public hearing.”
He said they will meet at the Kilili Beach at 4 p.m. and then walk to the multi-purpose center.
Members and supporters are asked to bring signs, banners and written testimony, he said.
“We also invite our Tinian sisters and brothers to attend the Senate hearing on Tinian on Feb. 25 at 6 p.m. in the cafeteria of Tinian Elementary School,” he said.
Feliciano said they recognize that it is the U.S. Congress that will decide the status of the nonresident workers in the CNMI.
However, he said they want to go on record to “protest the untruths” in the draft Senate report.
“We want to let the U.S. Congress and all American citizens know that the legal foreign workers in the CNMI want to join the American family as full U.S. citizens, after living and working in the CNMI for years and decades,” he said.
He said they want to ensure that their testimony will be included in the Senate report.
He said they will send their own video, photographs and testimony so that the U.S. Congress will know that they support a pathway to U.S. citizenship for all legal nonresidents who have worked in the CNMI for five consecutive years or longer.
