Sablan told reporters that this administrative remedy, along with his bill, “are the right thing to do and I hope the governor would find it in his heart today, Thanksgiving, to acknowledge that these are families we are trying to help. The holidays are here. Christmas is coming and we need to open our hearts and find in our hearts that this is the right thing to do.”
He said he hopes that Fitial would join him in this effort.
“Obviously he did not want this to happen a bit. Obviously he also did not want to find additional money for food stamps,” Sablan noted.
The Fitial administration is “gravely concerned about the degree of impact this would have on the commonwealth.”
In an email, Press Secretary Angel A. Demapan said Fitial believes that “the cost of allowing all unemployed and unemployable foreigners to remain in a very small economy like the CNMI is very high.”
Demapan said this may create a larger underground economy and cause more legitimate businesses to close.
The governor, he added, is most concerned about the economic and social harm this development may cause.
Demapan disclosed that the governor will request a meeting with Mayorkas when he heads to Washington, D.C. for the National Governors Association meeting in February.
“Hopefully, a much more prudent and just solution can be agreed upon then,” Demapan said.
USCIS announced on its website that “based on recent developments in the CNMI, USCIS will consider, on a case by case basis, a grant of parole until Dec. 31, 2012 to the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and certain ‘stateless individuals.”
According to USCIS, ”This will allow immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and stateless individuals to maintain legal status in the CNMI. With the expiration of umbrella permits on Nov. 27, 2011, immediate relatives and certain stateless individuals may not have another option under U.S. immigration law.”
Those who can stay after Nov. 27 and apply for this type of parole are the following:
• An immediate relative of a U.S. citizen. An immediate relative is a legal spouse, unmarried child under 21 years old or parent (regardless of the age of the U.S. citizen child) who is legally present and resides in the CNMI as of Nov. 27, 2011.
• A foreign national born in what is now the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974 and Jan. 9, 1978 (this group of individuals is sometimes referred to as “stateless” because of their unique situation under the Covenant Act establishing eligibility for U.S. citizenship of individuals born in the CNMI); or,
• A child (unmarried under 21 years old) or legal spouse of a foreign national who was born in what is now the CNMI between Jan. 1, 1974 and Jan. 9, 1978 (also known as a stateless individual).
Adela Igros, who has lived on island since 1975, has four small children and two of them, 10-year-old Marissa and nine-year-old Marivic, were born here.
Igros is unemployed “because its’ very hard to find a job now.”
She said she was planning to send her parole application today when he heard about the good news.
“Of course, I am very happy and I know I am not the only one who is happy about this,” she said.
“If everybody is granted one year parole, I think everybody will be happy. This is very good news today,” she added.
If USCIS did not come up with this administrative remedy and if her application was disapproved, Igros, a native of Baguio, the Philippines, said:
“I’m going to be out of status and I’m willing to go home as there’s nothing more I can do.”
She added, “I can’t leave my children here. I have to take them with me when I leave the island, no matter what. Although they are U.S. citizens I have to bring them with me.”
Igros said she is very grateful to Sablan.
Hard work
Sablan said persuading USCI was hard work and was difficult to “try to make this happen with time running out.”
“I reached out to the president directly. For a while I had been reaching out to him but I think it was September when I had a face to face meeting with the president,” he said.
But Sablan did not stop there.
“I touched base again with the White House, [reached out] to [Department of Homeland Security] Secretary Janet Napolitano and [USCIS] Director Mayorkas.”
“Perhaps, they listened,” Sablan said.
He recalled that after talking with the president, he also met with Napolitano who assured him she would talk to Mayorkas.
Sablan later met Mayorkas, who assured the lawmaker that the USCIS director and the DHS secretary had discussed the issue.
Bu all this started in the CNMI, Sablan said. That is why he gives the credit to USCIS Honolulu District Director David Gulick and many other federal officials who were involved in addressing the issue.
“None of these would have been possible without the assistance of people on the ground here — David Gulick and his team — who came here and saw things; they saw the problem,” Sablan said.
“It’s stressful. I did not in my entire life bring in third country national to the NMI. Not one here in the NMI has come here because of me. But when I took oath of my office I found this problem on my door step. I did not walk over it, I did not side-step it. I picked it up and made it as much as my problem because this is a commonwealth problem and we need to fix it,” he said.
Fitial, as a House member, authored the law that governed the entry of guest workers to the CNMI.
