An American on the front-line of a rally supporting non-resident workers in the Northern Mariana Islands says those workers should have been granted US citizenship years ago.
In just over a month the CNMI will move to federalised immigration and the worker's advocate fears that employees without immigration status issued by the US government may be deported.
The United Workers Movement has launched a round the clock vigil outside the US Immigration office in a bid to grant all legal foreign workers parole to review their immigration status.
A protester Craig Benham, who now resides in Saipan, says if non-resident workers are deported there will be huge ramifications.
"You have a great number of people, between eight and ten thousand Philipinos alone, on this island that are working jobs that the majority of the people will not work. And when they leave, no one is going to remain to take these jobs and do this type of work. It's going to be an island of turmoil."
Craig Benham.
He says he will stay at the rally site until the Immigration service makes a decision or till November 27th when the new rules governing foreign workers will come into effect.
