Our lost immigration system

People of the African continent left that region, by boats, for Europe by the hundreds, a lot of them for France. They became refugees. We have similar things happening here, but the now-undocumented aliens are not claiming refugee status nor political asylum. I think they want legalized permanent residency. Would that not create furor among our Chamorus and Refaluasch? The CNMI is one path to citizenship. They just want to stay here, whatever the goals and objectives they’re aiming for, because there is an opportunity for a better life, so they say. We have contract laborers who overstaying, meaning that their labor contracts have expired but are not really ready to leave. We also have people who came in as visitors but are working at some business establishments or construction site. Recently, the FBI discovered 1,034 undocumented workers at the IPI construction site. Group by group, these undocumented laborers are being flown home to China. A few days ago, 92 illegal workers of Gold Mantis Construction Decoration who came as tourists were returned to China. There are also 14 documented laborers who came but without a labor sponsor.

I say these happenings are an abuse of the immigration system, not labor—aliens coming in as tourist but switching to being workers. As of late last week, these unsponsored laborers were being berthed at the China Town senior citizen center and were being fed by the government. Whose responsibility is it to take care of these workers at China Town? DHS. We should charge DHS for whatever the expenses of berthing these workers. DHS should put them on the next flight to China, not at our expense. They are not our responsibility.

This brings up the repeated issues of the link between immigration management and labor, and their impact on our economy. We need to have an immigration system as a support for our workforce requirement, and to augment our economy. We are a self-governing entity, a commonwealth, with a unique political status with internal sovereignty. We gave that away, but the Refaluasch did not. They refused to give away their sovereignty. However, this commonwealth is a democracy, a representative democracy. As such, I say that those who voted the most “wins the game,” meaning majority vote rules. As a sovereignty, the ability to control who comes into the NMI is critical to who and what we are.

Now, say, that the CNMI is a gigantic mall. Malls depend on a certain volume of consumers just to remain open, to make some profit, to flourish, and grow. It needs a “humongous” number of consumers for the size of it to make it operate everyday. Now, imagine there’s a “Checkpoint Charlie” where incoming or outgoing consumers are checked for whatever reason. If people do not meet certain requirements, they are turned away. Hypothetical. How long do you think that mall will survive? And what of the concessionaires in that mall, how long will they remain open before they start screaming for the removal of the restrictions, in this case the checkpoint, so they can survive the erratic money movement? Is the example understandable? We are that mall. “Checkpoint Charlie” is INA-DHS. The “in and out” movement is immigration. Consumers are the immigrants who are the economic resource. Anytime DHS makes any large-scale adverse decision encompassing the whole immigration parameter, it affects our economy. That bad decision morphs into a failed economy. Now, there are issues with some of our visitors. Many are, in fact, “illegals,” people who came and stayed for whatever reason and are not being caught despite the effort of the monitors. Most stay for survival and the chance to make a living. This scenario is true for the U.S. mainland, as well.

People have to do the searching. That’s immigration side. The U.S. has an immigration problem, too. Big time. A total of 629,000 overstayed their visas last year. DHS has a hard time knowing where everybody is. The “overstayers” outnumber the undocumented border crossers. This is a problem that really has no solution. “Overstayers” do try to stay out of DHS’ sight. But DHS wants to be easy on 50,000 Haitians who were victims of a 2010 earthquake.

Countries all over the world are experiencing a significant increase in the number of illegal immigrants. The wars in the Middle East have contributed to the influx. So, what do we do? What can we do?

Let’s take it from a different perspective. We have had illegal immigrants here for a long time, many dating back to the days of the garment industry. They lost legal immigration status when their labor contracts expired, but they didn’t want to go back home. Here, they’re making a living, many working illegally on a one-to-one hiring but are not paying taxes and utilities, at least most of them. If we get back our immigration system, maybe we can grant some status to them so they can contribute to the CNMI’s coffers. Help pay for the government’s operation, etc. The reason we say that is because the U.S. “plays around” with immigration and naturalization laws if it wants to. It came up with “CNMI-only,” and “DREAM” status, forgave the Haitians, negotiated with “sanctuary cities, scheduled the exit date of the CWs, etc. That shows that if the U.S. wants to modify its immigration laws, it would do so. Just give Congress an honest reason to modify the law.

Can the CNMI round up the now-undocumented workers? Nope, not our job. This is an immigration matter, remember? And in order to weed out all these people, the U.S. would have to do one of two things, either provide an amnesty period for people to come forward to either be deported without limitations or be given status or scour every inch of the island, asking for “papers.” The problem is, how many agents would be used? That’s also U.S. problem. How do you feel about it? To legalize their residency here, “CNMI-only”?

Well, enough of the talk, the threats, the promises and grandstanding in the name of gearing up for the next election. We want our elected leaders to act now, be it through the 902 talks, our delegate to Congress or direct communication with the federal government so we can control our future. Where are our elected officials? Are only Gov. Torres and U.S. Delegate Kilili doing something to this effect? Legislators too busy taxing buses, van, shutting down handguns, approving their tremendous salary increases? Did we elect them for those? We got taxes up to our neck. They’re running us dry. It is high time for them to buckle down and man up to their responsibilities. Think up some revenue sources that don’t eat up people’s “pockets.”

Rudy M. Sablan
Garapan, Saipan