‘Jobless Foreign Workers Need Not Leave CNMI after Nov. 27′

A former general attorney for Immigration and Naturalization Services for 10 years and one of the richest Filipino-Americans said yesterday that jobless foreign workers should not fear deportation from the CNMI after Nov. 27, 2011, without having their case heard by immigration court, especially if they have U.S. citizen children, spouse or parents, have not committed a crime, or have not received social welfare, among other things.

Attorney Loida Nicolas Lewis, chair of the U.S. Pinoys for Good Governance who has written books on U.S. immigration law, also wrote an Oct. 24 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano requesting that alien workers in the CNMI “be granted deferred status with work permits so that they have legal status beyond the Nov. 27, 2011 deadline.”

In her four-page letter to Napolitano, Lewis said another important factor that has to be taken into consideration is the “Morton memo.”

The “Morton memo” directs Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys and employees to “exercise prosecutorial discretion” and refrain from going after non-citizens with close family ties in the U.S., among other things, unless they are criminals or pose a clear risk to national security.

Lewis said that based on the list of factors to consider when exercising prosecutorial discretion, the following can be applicable to aliens in the CNMI: the person’s length of presence in the U.S., with particular consideration given to presence while in lawful status; the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the U.S. and the manner of his or her entry, particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child, among other things.

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