Gulf Veteran Finds Bigger Battle in INS Bureaucracy

Navy Corpsman Alfredo B. Quiambao survived the Persian Gulf War and returned to the United States to fight a much more formidable foe: the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Quiambao, who has been in the U.S. Navy for almost eight years, is a combat corpsman recently decorated with the Navy Achievement Medal for treating wounded Marines under fire during the battle for Kuwait.

On Feb. 27, while serving with the 1st Battalion 1st Marine Regiment, Quiambao’s company was momentarily pinned down by heavy Iraqi small arms, mortar and artillery fire as the Marines advanced into Kuwait. A Marine with the lead unit suffered multiple shrapnel wounds, and Quiambao and another corpsman advanced under fire to assist him.

“He courageously exposed himself to intense enemy fire to render medical aid and move the wounded Marine to safety,” Quiambao’s commendation reads.

When he returned to San Diego earlier this month, the 31-year-old Quiambao, a native of the Philippines, was preparing himself for another battle with the INS bureaucracy. Filipino nationals enlisting in the U.S. Navy do not have to go through the INS to live here. Usually, this is a big benefit, but in Quiambao’s case this exception has come back to haunt him.

His wife, Purita, 38 and a nurse at Paradise Valley Hospital, and his daughter, Michelle, 7, are permanent U.S. residents and have visas. Another daughter, 1-year-old Elaine, was born here. Purita Quiambao sponsored Michelle’s entry to the United States.

But in November, about a month before he departed for the Persian Gulf, the INS told Quiambao that, because of a quirk in the immigration law, his wife could not sponsor him.

“It’s the peculiarity of the law that doesn’t allow it,” said Quiambao’s attorney, Carl Shusterman, a former INS official. “It’s a case where only the INS can help him. . . . Well, we went to the INS, and they basically said, ‘Tough luck.’ They took the view that, if they do it for him, it will open the floodgates for thousands more. But that’s not the case. This is rare.”

But that was last year. On Monday, INS District Director Jim Turnage said officials are looking for ways to resolve Quiambao’s immigration problem. The district office in San Diego handles 12,000 to 15,000 applications for permanent residency every year, but Quiambao’s was the first case of its kind that INS officials here had seen.

“It’s rare. This is the first time we’ve encountered it,” Turnage said.

What made Quiambao’s case so unusual was a 1989 law passed by Congress that extended special preference to his wife and other foreign-born nurses. The law was passed in order to fill a critical shortage of nurses in U.S. hospitals.

As a result of the nurses law, Purita Quiambao, who came to the United States as a serviceman’s wife, was given permanent residency by the INS almost overnight. As a permanent resident, she was able to sponsor Michelle. But, when she tried to sponsor her husband, the couple were told that Quiambao was ineligible for permanent residency.

The problem was that he was already here under an obscure law that permits Filipinos to enlist in the Navy in the Philippines without first obtaining permanent residency. Filipinos are the only foreign servicemen allowed to enlist--but only in the Navy--without first obtaining permanent residency.

INS officials wanted to make Quiambao a permanent resident but could not because he entered the United States on military orders and without a visa, Turnage said. Quiambao and Shusterman said INS officials played hardball in November, when Quiambao applied for permanent residency.

On Monday, Turnage said INS officials are now looking for a way to resolve the problem in Quiambao’s favor.

Turnage said his office has asked the INS regional office in Laguna Niguel for help. Turnage said his office is considering two alternatives but wants a legal opinion from higher-ups about one.

One possibility is to wait until Quiambao’s enlistment is up and allow him to go to Mexico, then turn around and enter the United States as an immigrant “parolee.” The other possibility is more uncertain, said Turnage, and requires the approval of the regional office.

Under the second alternative, Quiambao would not have to wait until his enlistment is up before being allowed to cross the border into Mexico and return as a parolee.

“We’re looking at the possibility of letting him go to Mexico and allow him to be paroled (to the United States). We’re researching several possibilities,” Turnage said.

Quiambao, who is assigned to Camp Pendleton, said he is mystified by the INS bureaucracy but is optimistic that it will eventually work for him.

“I did fight for the United States in support of the Saudi and Kuwaiti people. I did risk my life for this country and think they should consider me for permanent residency,” Quiambao said.

Frustrated, he wrote to President Bush in February, when he was in the Middle East, asking for assistance. The White House forwarded his letter to INS officials in Washington, who told him what he already knew:

“You could not be admitted to live permanently in the United States without an immigrant visa.”

Despite Quiambao’s frustration, Turnage said the INS will not separate him from his family.

“I want to make it clear that he is perfectly eligible to stay in the U.S. and come and go in his present status,” Turnage said.

Officials on both sides agree that Quiambao’s immigrant status could be quickly cleared up by an executive order from Bush. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Coronado) has asked Bush to issue an executive order declaring a period of hostilities in the Persian Gulf during the liberation of Kuwait.

If Bush were to do that, Quiambao and all other foreign nationals serving in the U.S. military during the Gulf War would automatically be eligible for U.S. citizenship, regardless of where they served. The President has yet to act on Hunter’s request.