Other Pacific

Permanent residency status to migrant workers

US Department of Interior’s deputy assistant secretary for insular affairs David B. Cohen announced that the department is considering granting a permanent residency status to migrant workers subjected to labor and human rights abuses in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The CNMI, home to thousands of Filipino workers and their families, is now facing the shutdown of factories, a downturn in tourism and difficult economic conditions. Although part of the US, CNMI still controls its own immigration, labor and customs. Under the Resident Workers Act, a foreign worker’s employment contract is renewable either every year or every two years, making it difficult for migrant workers to assert their rights, rendering them susceptible to abuse.

The House subcommittee on insular affairs held an oversight hearing on 20 April to address the problems facing foreign workers. The US Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources has tasked Cohen and his office to draft an immigration bill to secure CNMI’s borders and to address the plight of foreign workers in the Marianas. Sources say workers who have legally stayed in the CNMI over the last five years with no pending labor case could be eligible for permanent residency status.

Sources: Jude O. Marfil-Schwalbach, “US House panel to check on Pinoy’s plight in CNMI," GMANews.TV, 18 April 2007; Jude O. Marfil-Schwalbach, “Pinoy workers in CNMI may yet get ‘green card’," GMANews.TV, 25 April 2007