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Torres backs Fitial lawsuit vs federalization
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Posted on Oct 22 2008
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial has found an unlikely ally in Rep. Stanley Torres, who came out yesterday in support of the administration’s lawsuit against the U.S. government over the new immigration law.
Torres, probably one of the governor’s staunchest critics, yesterday issued a statement defending Fitial’s decision to sue the federal government, saying it was a “wise” move.
He mocked the criticism about the lawsuit and attributed most of them to “the usual we-hate-this-administration-whatever-they-do crowd and…a few crackpot bloggers.”
Torres admitted that there are some reasonable arguments against the lawsuit. One such claim, he said, is that it is possible to talk with the federal agencies and work out all the problems without a lawsuit. But he also said that negotiation is unnecessary if the CNMI can get a court to rule that the pending federal takeover of CNMI immigration is unconstitutional.
“[T]here is no reason to beg federal agencies to draft regulations we can live with if those regs are never written because a court shows the U.S. Congress overstepped its bounds when it drafted the law to begin with,” he said.
He added, “Once you get past all the hate speech and the hurt feelings and the misinformation, you will find as I have that there are some pretty good reasons to back Governor Fitial in his bid to find answers to some interesting and vitally important questions by suing in federal court. His administration’s decision to ‘let the courts decide’ is, I believe, a wise one….”
Among the reasons he cited are the new labor and immigration system’s potentially adverse impact on the economy and the CNMI’s right to self-government.
