‘Delay federalization but not worker and investor rules’

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce wants the June 1 commencement of the transition to federal immigration to be delayed but is asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security not to further delay issuing the regulations on the CNMI-only transition worker program and the CNMI-only foreign investor visa program.

“In order for businesses and the Commonwealth community to benefit from any delay in implementation, we will need to know the parameters of those regulations,” Chamber president Jim Arenovski said in a letter to DHS’s Customs and Border Protection.

Arenovski’s statement is part of the Chamber’s 13-page comment released yesterday.

The Chamber is the largest business organization in the CNMI with approximately 150 members.

With only three months before the transition program’s effective date, DHS has so far issued only the interim final rule on the establishment of U.S. ports of entry in the CNMI and the Guam-CNMI visa waiver program.

In its comments to DHS, the Chamber said the interim final rule “will cause significant harm” to the Northern Marianas, which is already subject to automatic minimum wage increases through at least 2015 regardless of the status of the local economy.

The Chamber group asked DHS to identify any technical assistance or other support offered to the CNMI under the rule, provide incentives to foster longer-term tourist stays in the Marianas, and identify with specificity the additional layered security measures needed to include China and Russia in the list of countries whose citizens do not need U.S. visas to enter the CNMI or Guam.

Excluding Chinese and Russian tourists from the list of countries exempt from the U.S. visa requirement will result in $339 million in lost revenues for the CNMI annually, the Marianas Visitors Authority earlier said.

It also said the economic analysis that has been relied upon by DHS is “substantially flawed.”

DHS relied on a report prepared for the Canadian Department of Finance. “The CNMI is neither Canada nor a major developed country. It is not even a state of the United States,” Arenovski said.

The report, according to the Chamber, also fails to recognize established statistics and instead relies on assumptions.

Thus, it wants DHS to reevaluate its reliance on the economic analysis prepared by Industrial Economics.

Less than 30 entities in the CNMI and Guam have so far submitted comment ahead of the March 17 deadline for public comments.

Most of the comments want a 180-day delay in the start of the transition period, citing projected severe negative impact on the already strained economy and foreign labor, and insufficient time, funding, manpower and other resources to put the local system under federal control.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial, Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan and other officials have already formally asked DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to delay the federalization by 180 days.

Yesterday, Fitial said during a press conference that he will meet again with Napolitano to follow up on his request for a delay.