Gulf War Veteran Wins Residency Fight

It appears that Navy corpsman Alfred B. Quiambao, who returned from combat in Operation Desert Storm only to battle with the Immigration and Naturalization Service bureaucracy, has won.

Quiambao, 31, and a native of the Philippines, will be granted permanent resident alien status, INS officials and representatives with the U.S. consul general said Tuesday.

The Persian Gulf War veteran had been frustrated for almost a year by failed attempts to persuade immigration officials to allow his wife, who is a permanent U.S. resident, to sponsor him for permanent residency.

Undaunted by the unbending INS bureaucracy, Quiambao was deployed with the 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment to Kuwait earlier this year, where he was decorated for treating wounded Marines under fire.

Upon his return to Camp Pendleton in April, INS officials appeared to have a change of heart and announced that they were looking for a way to resolve Quiambao’s immigration problem in his favor. However, those hopes were dimmed in August, when an INS official in San Diego informed the eight-year Navy veteran that he would not be getting any special privileges after all.

Legally, the INS could have required Quiambao to return to the Philippines when his enlistment ended in December, leaving his wife and two young daughters in San Diego. Like thousands of other Filipinos, Quiambao was allowed to enlist under a law that allows Filipino nationals to enlist in the U.S. Navy without getting an immigrant’s visa.

On Tuesday, INS officials in San Diego and U.S. Consul General Ted Cubbison in Tijuana said Quiambao’s perseverance has paid off. And in the process, seven other Filipino sailors whose situations were identical to Quiambao’s will profit from his efforts.

U.S. consulate officials in Tijuana have requested the mens’ files from the U.S. Consulate in Manila, Cubbison said. The other men have also been sponsored for permanent U.S. residency by family members, said INS spokesman Rudy Murillo.

Under the plan, which federal officials say is extraordinary, Quiambao and the other sailors will be summoned to the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana once their files are processed. They will be given an immigrant visa to return to the United States. When they go through the port of entry, the INS will make each man a permanent resident alien.

Quiambao was in training at Camp Pendleton on Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. However, his wife said she was overjoyed by the news.

“That’s great news for my husband and our family. I’m overwhelmed right now,” said Purita Quiambao, 38, and a nurse at Paradise Valley Hospital in National City.

The INS and State Department decided to act on Quiambao’s request after local congressmen took an interest in his case. Officials decided to include the other sailors when a review of their files showed that their cases were identical to Quiambao’s, Murillo said.