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Legislator wants to ban nonresident workers from setting up businesses
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Posted on Dec 08 2004
House majority leader Oscar M. Babauta has introduced a bill that seeks to prevent nonresident workers from owning a business in the CNMI.
House Bill 14-273 aims to amend existing laws to ensure that nonresident workers do not become employers themselves.
Specifically, the bill wants to delete the date in 3 CMC subsections 4437 (h) and 443 (i) subsection H which reads: “No nonresident workers whose first entry into the CNMI for purposes of employment occurs after July 28, 1987, shall have a financial interest in or operate or engage in any business or become an employer.”
Babauta said the date limitation as stipulated in the CNMI Commonwealth Code “has outlived its purpose.”
“This amendment will prevent nonresident workers from engaging or owning businesses or becoming employers. The purpose of employing nonresident workers in the Commonwealth is to increase the available workers,” said Babauta.
The purpose of the bill, he said, is to eliminate altogether the option for nonresident workers to build a business in the local community.
The proposal also aims to remove a provision in subsection I which deals with the issuance of immediate relative entry permits to qualified nonresident workers.
The present law allows issuance of entry permits to the immediate relatives of a nonresident worker whose annual salary is more than $20,000, who posts a bond guaranteeing the family members’ repatriation.
The provision, however, exempts immediate relatives who were already in the Commonwealth on July 28, 1987.
Babauta’s bill aims to remove the waiver for the old batch of nonresident workers.
