Five Hawaii residents have filed a petition with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, asking the agency to amend requirements for obtaining a state longline fishing license amid alarm about poor working conditions aboard vessels that bring in ahi and swordfish to Honolulu piers.

The Land Board oversees the Department of Land and Natural Resources, which issues about 700 permits annually to longline fishermen, the great majority of whom are believed to be foreign workers who lack legal standing in the United States.

Hawaii’s longline fleet of about 140 vessels is exempt from a federal law that requires 75 percent of crew members on fishing boats to be domestic workers.

The loophole allows the foreign fishermen to work without visas, but they are not allowed to set foot on shore. As a result, foreign workers can remain confined to boats for years, in some cases working under harsh labor conditions, an Associated Press investigation published earlier this month found.

While the foreign fishermen can’t set foot on U.S. soil, they still have to obtain a license from DLNR’s offices in downtown Honolulu annually as part of the state’s efforts to manage fishery resources, adding another peculiar layer to the legal purgatory that these fishermen find themselves in.

Because the fishermen aren’t supposed to leave their boats, another official with the vessel, usually a captain, will bring the applications into DLNR and pick up the permits, according to Bruce Anderson, administrator for DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources.

The petition filed with the Land Board on Thursday asks that a fishing license denote whether the fisherman “is eligible for landing privileges in Hawaii.” Vessel owners or officers would also be required to provide DLNR with a list of all the foreign fishermen who work for them who are unable to leave the boat, as well as contact information for any translators who may be assisting the fishermen with the applications.

The petition was filed by Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery; Larry Geller, who runs a local blog called Disappeared News; Michael Gagne; Karen Chun; and Cory Harden.

“It accomplishes transparency,” said Geller, noting that the petition will also trigger public hearings, allowing for greater community discussion about labor practices on the longline boats.

Anderson said that his department already has extensive information about the fishermen, the captains and vessels, which it can pull up at any time. In addition to providing personal contact information, the fishermen have to present their documentation from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security indicating they are permitted to work on U.S. fleets, but can’t leave the boats when docked at Honolulu harbor.

“So we do have a good idea of who is on the vessel,” said Anderson.

While the labor issues are expected to be addressed primarily at the federal level, Anderson said that DLNR is open to help including reviewing the proposals in Thursday’s petition.

“We are concerned with the situation and certainly we would like to do our part in trying to assure that the fishermen are provided a fair wage and are working under reasonable conditions,” said Anderson.

Currently, Hawaii’s congressional delegation is looking at how it can work with federal agencies to improve oversight of labor conditions. This could include closing the federal loophole that has allowed the foreign workers to be the majority of the fishermen in Hawaii’s longline fishing fleet.

On Thursday, two Indonesian fishermen who had been working on a Honolulu-based ahi and swordfish vessel filed a lawsuit against the boat’s owner, alleging dangerous, slavelike conditions. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, is against Thoai Nguyen, owner and captain of the Sea Queen II.

The workers allege that they were required to work up to 20-hour shifts under dangerous conditions and weren’t allowed to leave before the end of their contracts unless they reimbursed the owner thousands of dollars.

Hawaii’s longline fishing industry has said that the poor labor conditions are not representative of the industry as a whole and that they are working to weed out any bad actors.