Filams told to press immigration reforms

WASHINGTON - Filipino immigrants have considerable political and economic clout in the United States and they should use this influence to lobby for immigration reforms that would substantially reduce the time it takes to petition immediate family members, immigration reform advocates said. Â?Filipinos suffer from some of the worst immigration backlogs in the world,Â? said Jon Melegrito, founding executive director of the Washington-based National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA). Â?A US citizen parent petitioning for an adult son or daughter from the Philippines must wait for 14 years before he or she can immigrate to the US. Petitioning for a brother or sister takes longer - as much as 22 years,Â? he said in a teleconference with reporters on Sept. 7. Due in part to this long wait, the number of undocumented Filipinos living in the United States continues to rise and is now conservatively estimated at around 200,000. In addition, according to the US census of 2000, there are about 1.9 million Filipinos living in the country. Of the total 32 percent are US citizens by virtue of birth, 41 percent are naturalized US citizens and 26 percent are permanent residents, so-called Green Card holders. Melegrito noted the purchasing power of Filipinos was substantial Â?because we love to shop.Â? Also, the US infrastructure would be severely compromised if Filipinos stopped working because many of them are employed in healthcare and childcare, in hotels and restaurants and in other service industries, he said. Traci Hong, director of immigration program at the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC), at the same teleconference said FilAms were the second largest Asian American community in the country and politicians would do well to remember Â?not only the purchasing power of the community but also its voting power.Â? NaFFAA and NAPALC called for comprehensive immigration reforms to fix what they said was a broken US immigration system and to reunite Filipino American families.

By Jose Katigbak