There would have been more Filipinos in America today if the annual quota of 20,000 permanent resident visas was not imposed by immigration law.  This has created a backlog of immigration petitions to a point where a petitioner has to wait anywhere from 15 to 25 years.  And the waiting period is getting longer each year.  For those who could not wait, they use a “short cut” route to America by using other types of visas.  These are the TNTs (acronym for “tago ng tago,” the peripatetic tourist who moves around to evade detection by INS) who are estimated to be around 500,000 to 1,000,000.  

With the passage of S.2611 — known as the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006"-by the US Senate, the floodgate that has kept immigration at a trickling pace would start a new ”Brain Drain."  An amendment submitted by Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii was accepted unanimously which would grant permanent resident visas to children of Filipino World War II veterans.  Another amendment submitted by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas was also accepted which would remove the cap on the hiring of foreign nurses.  With the bill’s key component of giving an opportunity to the majority of the 12 million illegal immigrants to gain legal visa status, the TNT’s-a large number of whom have children born in the United States, thus, making them red-white-and-blue American citizens  — are finally seeing a beacon of hope at the end of the tunnel.  

Sen. Brownback’s amendment is a driven by the fact that health care in the United States is in dire need of professional services such as physicians, nurses, physical therapists, caregivers, and an array of other related professionals and skilled workers.  And with the 80 million “baby boomers” going into retirement soon, the demand for such services would increase exponentially within the next decade.   Study shows that every eight seconds, an American is turning 50 years old.  And, Americans are living longer as well.  

Evidently, the problem that the United States would encounter is that there would not be enough Americans to take over the jobs of the retiring “baby boomers.”  That, plus the increasing demand for health care professionals, America could go into an economic tailspin.  American businesses would be forced to outsource their manufacturing productions and contract out professional services to foreign-based providers.    But in the case of the health care industry, outsourcing is not an option-domestic labor has to  be used.

With the anticipated new “Brain Drain,” some Filipinos are criticizing those who have left the Philippines for greener pastures in other countries.  Some are saying that job opportunities in foreign countries are draining the local pool of Filipino nurses; thus, creating extreme hardship for Philippine medical centers.  This reasoning is hogwash.  With a population of 87 million, unemployment rate of about 15%, and an underemployment rate of-in my opinion — 60%, there is no reason why the Philippines should run out of nurses.  If, for instance, the United States needs one million foreign-trained nurses, what would prevent the Philippines from producing two million nurses?  

The problem is that the Philippines has an abundance of lawyers, engineers, accountants, “commerce graduates,” and... politicians.  The “macho” mentality of the Filipino men deters them from taking up nursing which they believe is a profession for women only.  And they blame the OFWs for their misery?  One sure way to increase the supply of nurses in the Philippines is for the unemployed/underemployed lawyers, engineers, accountants, “commerce graduates,” and the over-employed politicians to take up nursing.

With S.2611 going into a joint Senate-House of Representatives conference committee to thresh out the differences with the enforcement-only HR 4437 — known as the “Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005"-passed by the House, a strong lobbying from the Filipino-American community is needed.  It is the opinion of many Fil-Am leaders that the Akaka amendment is more important than the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill... and it is doable.  

S.2611 has already passed the half-way mark and President Bush indicated that if the bill is passed by the House of Repreentatives, he would sign it into law.  And this is where the big problem lies: there is a strong opposition from the proponents of HR 4437 who only want an enforcement-only immigration reform bill and perceive the “comprehensive” nature of S.2611 as a code for “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

Last week, I posted a “call to action” for Filipino-Americans to lobby their congressmen to support  S.2611.  And, lo and behold, I got an email from a Filipino WWII veteran chastising me for saying that there is a “strong opposition” to the Akaka amendment.  He said that the Akaka amendment would not be removed in the conference committee because it has the solid support of the US Senate.  While it is true that S.2611 was unanimously approved by the Senators, there is no guarantee that it would not be deleted from the final version to be worked out by both houses.  As they say in Washington, DC, “out sight, out of mind.”

If the Filipino-American community would not voice out their support for a “comprehensive” bill, there is likelihood that a watered-down compromise bill would remove sections of the bill that the lawmakers feel are not essential to their constituents.  And, as we have experienced the sad saga of  the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill for the past 60 years, there is really no compelling reason for the majority of the congressmen who support HR 4437 to keep the Akaka amendment in the final version.   

The Filipino-American leaders, particularly the proponents of the Filipino Veterans Equity Bill, need to be more proactive and mobilize their communities to lobby for the passage of S.2611. Call your congressmen now.  It’s now or never.

(Perrydiaz@aol.com)