Municipal councils join fight vs federal takeover

The CNMI government’s fight against federal takeover gained fresh support through separate resolutions filed simultaneously by Saipan & Northern Islands and Tinian municipal councils, seeking to block the extension of U.S. immigration and minimum wage laws into the Northern Marianas.

Saipan and Northern Islands Council Chair Gregorio V. Deleon Guerrero stressed the Covenant which established the CNMI in political union with the U.S. allowed the Northern Marianas to become financially self-sufficient.

Institutionalizing federal immigration and minimum wage control in the islands would prove disastrous to local businesses which continue to face uncertainties due to slow economic activity and dwindling visitor arrival figures.

With its control over its own immigration and minimum wage since the Commonwealth was established by the Covenant, CNMI encouraged business growth that reduced its dependence on federal funding from 85 percent to about 12 percent in 1999.

Tinian’s Municipal Resolution 8-02 stated that the CNMI government depends heavily on revenues pumped up by the garment manufacturing industry and that federalization of immigration and labor controls would endanger the reliability of the sector.

“The threat to the Commonwealth’s garment industry is a threat to the islands as well. The reserved power of the Congress to apply the U.S, Immigration and Nationality Act to the CNMI is completely devoid of any consideration of the potential economic impact to the Commonwealth,” said MR 8-02.

MR 8-02, introduced by Tinian Council Chairperson Juanita M. Mendiola, noted that the CNMI government has intensified efforts to address alleged human rights violations concerns raised by the federal government in relation to the CNMI’s hosting of over 30,000 nonresident workers.

The Commonwealth has intensified administrative enforcement and judicial mechanisms to improve all cases of labor abuse, while emphasizing that rights violation is a “typical phenomenon” elsewhere in the United States and other American territories.

“[We feel] that the United States is unfairly waving the banner of human rights violations specifically in the CNMI in order to demolish our flourishing garment industry,” the resolution added.

MR 8-02 also urged the Clinton Administration to look into similar reports of labor abuse in several major cities in the mainland U.S. and other American territories to ensure everybody is working at addressing human rights violation concerns.