Dereliction of duties

Has anyone noticed how our government and business leaders address our manpower and workforce needs? Well, I do, and here is how I describe it. They waited and procrastinated in either, providing verifiable current statistical employment data or hurriedly put together poorly defendable workforce options, within and outside the mandates of U.S. Public Law 110-229, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act.  

Their focus was and has been to beg U.S. Congress for relief, even though Congress had explicitly stated its intent with respect to immigrants entering the borders of the United States, especially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, where CNMI-Only Immigrant and Non-immigrant employment-based classifications are permissible and enforceable. 

This frantic 11th hour marathon by selected business elites and leaders of the Commonwealth seeking hardly attainable remedy, is a reminder of previous ignoble actions and motives, attempting to thwart federalization of immigration in the CNMI some 10 years ago. Besides, there are H visa worker categories available for businesses to apply for their labor needs. This isn’t all doom and gloom Titanic situation that some in the Chamber of Commerce are peddling as a scare tactic. We have seen this ploy played before.  They continue to think and treat us as though a community of moronic idiots. 

Rather than pooling our technical and financial resources and concentrate on developing local workforce capacity using measurable tracking methodology, which U.S. Congress plainly expressed in 110-229. We keep reverting to old unimaginative option which perpetuates unlivable wages and dis-incentivizes private employment. We already lost credibility with U.S. Congress and that was the reason why it enacted the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 in the first place…to compel orderly policy implementation and compliance.  

Self-redemption requires demonstrable sincere efforts in adhering to statutory mandates, and not through filibustering required hard and difficult work. What U.S. Congress wants and expects of our leaders, is to be resolute in belaboring for building local workforce capacity by and beyond the authorized extension deadline. If the intent of Congress was otherwise, it wouldn’t have imposed a cutoff date for the exit of foreign workers.  

Let me make it plain and simple and excuse the redundancy. What U.S. Congress wants, and our government and business leaders keep evading it, is for the production of local U.S. workforce to eventually replace the need for foreign workers in the CNMI. Congress even provided financial assistance to help in underwriting the costs of workforce developments.  This was the intent in authorizing the CNMI-Only CW immigrant classification in 110-229. It was never meant to be the long-term labor workforce solution, and I can’t, for the life of me, understand what is it in our destructive obsession defying the will of Congress that we just can’t unshackle away from.  

Maybe the description of our leaders below is part of the answer. You see, when Congressional oversight hearings was taking place here in the Commonwealth back in 2007, oral testimonies presented by our citizens, described our leaders as complacence, aloof, indecisive, procrastinators, and calculating. So, Congress is aware of our leadership and governing style.  As a matter of fact, it was rumored that staffers from the office of Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, have established comprehensive profiles of leadership history of the Commonwealth. 

Aren’t our leaders placing themselves in a miserably inadequate position by appealing to members of Congress over the same issues (labor abuse and mismanagement) that forces them to exercise their plenary powers and take over our control of immigration? I mean, doesn’t it sound woefully ironic that U.S. Congress allows us to have control of immigration but screwed up its management after so many warnings; then they took it back in a form of PL 110-229 with a five-year grace period which ends in 2015, and through pleadings from our government and business leaders got extended to 2019 with more assurances of concentrated efforts toward building local workforce capacity, and again begging for relief over our ownfailures and incompetence?  

So, who is to blame for the actions of federal officials in following the mandates of the statute? Because there are human casualties in our leaders’ dereliction of their sworn duty, and these casualties are victims of leadership’s false pretenses. 

Based on our track records, students of history wouldn’t argue on the characterization of our leadership above, because it was poor leadership that messed up our self-government pursuit. If anyone wishes to disprove this statement, just review what happen between 1978 up till 1993 and again from 2007 to 2014. The fateful drama years wasn’t what our Covenant negotiators envision of our self-government to befall upon our Commonwealth. It is also poor leadership that has gotten us into this quagmire as well. 

Had we done our due diligence in concentrating on enacting policies and making decisions for the noble goods of our entire citizens, and not use political gamesmanship to undermine the future of this Commonwealth, we would have been 21th century bound. 

So, now the question, is there a need for foreign skilled workers in the CNMI? The answer is yes H categories. Are local residents against the presence of foreign workers in the CNMI? The answer is no. The indifference against foreign immigrants, not only workers, are their brazen (in-your-face) attitude of entitlement and little regards (KON RESPETO) to the cultural beliefs and practices of our Chamorro and Carolinian community. Their obtrusive display of personal habits and decorum, in government and public places, is considered culturally offensive and nauseating. It rubs our local people the wrong way.  

Here is my personal plea to our esteem leaders. Please stop politicizing the CW issues. These are not only positions to be filled but human bodies with emotions and feelings. There is enough anxiety created on the subject and patronizing their uncertain immigration status is just emotionally brutal and agonizing, and instead we should be merciful but conscious of the legal mandates. 

Daniel O. Quitugua 
Kanat Tabla