Labor slams resident status bill

The Department of Labor, through its deputy secretary Cinta M. Kaipat, described Rep. Tina Sablan’s bill that will grant resident status to long-time guest workers “a flawed and a special interest” legislation favoring only the alien workers.

While admitting that Sablan’s proposed bill will benefit local businesses, Kaipat said it would only be giving foreign-owned businesses yet another tax break.

Kaipat, a former lawmaker, also expressed alarm that this bill would mean a “flood” of over 20,000 alien workers and their family members who are now abroad in the initial wave.

In her letter to Rosemond B. Santos, chair for the House Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee, Kaipat said that Labor opposes Sablan’s draft “Resident Foreign National Status Act of 2008.”

Kaipat urged the committee not to report the draft bill, which she described as “unfortunate and flawed.”

“It accommodates only the interests of foreign workers and has no appropriate compensating benefits for the citizens of the Commonwealth,” she said.

Kaipat was the author of the controversial Public Law 15-18, the new labor reform law. This was one of the key issues that were protested by thousands of people, mostly alien workers, who participated in the Unity March led by Sablan in December.

Sablan and representatives Heinz Hofschneider, Edward Salas, and Victor Hocog co-authored the bill that will allow long-time foreign workers to stay for five-year periods in the CNMI. Alien worker groups had expressed support for the bill.

Under the proposed measure, a foreign worker may apply for a resident foreign national entry permit if he or she has lived legally in the CNMI for at least five years and has met character requirements. The bill does not offer permanent residency, resident status, citizenship, or nationality to a resident foreign national.

In Labor’s comment on the bill, Kaipat agreed with Sablan that this proposed bill “will benefit local businesses which will not be required to pay annual permit and processing fees and await the issuance of entry permits, or comply with extensive regulatory burdens.”

“However, the other side of this coin is that many of these fees are paid by foreign-owned businesses that remit cost of their profits back home, so Commonwealth citizens will be giving these foreign-owned businesses yet another tax break,” Kaipat pointed out.

The former lawmaker said because the bill bases its qualification for permanent residence status on five years in the CNMI, this will cover up to 20,000 foreign workers and their family members who are now abroad in the first year alone, and perhaps an additional 2,400 to 3,000 persons every year thereafter.

“This bill has no protections against fraud and, indeed, is so general as to invite evasion,” she said.

Kaipat said the purpose of the bill is to award permanent residency. Even though it says that permanent residence is not available, Kaipat said the bill creates conditions under which virtually every foreign worker in the Commonwealth will become eligible for a residence status that can be renewed indefinitely, and thus is “permanent.”

Kaipat said, “This is a special interest bill solely to accommodate foreign workers who face deportation under the current federalization legislation and should be rejected completely.”

With respect to the findings of the bill, Kaipat said there is no study, data, or expert opinion that supports the findings. She said the findings “have been made up out of whole cloth by the bill’s sponsor.”

Calling the bill as an immigration reform masquerade, Kaipat said there is nothing in the legislation that Sablan claims will “present an opportunity for constructive labor reform.”

Kaipat said it is not true as the findings state that “resident foreign nationals are more familiar with CNMI law and employment requirements than many other non-citizens due to their long-term presence in the CNMI, they do not require as much oversight as foreign national workers and can be employed productively and at will in the private economy.” She said there is absolutely no basis for this finding.

The deputy secretary said some foreign nationals speak English reasonably well, have dealt with the Labor Department honestly, and have a working understanding of their responsibilities under Commonwealth law.

Many foreign workers, however, of relatively long residence have been found by hearing officers to be engaged in scams and fraud just to remain in the Commonwealth, she said.

“They make false statements in hearings; disregard department orders; and generally disrespect Commonwealth law,” Kaipat said.

She said it is not necessarily the case that any foreign worker who has been present in the Commonwealth for five years without being apprehended for violations of Commonwealth law is a person who “adds to the collective prosperity” as the findings state.

“Many foreign workers who have been in the Commonwealth for five years have records of continuous employment, but that employment is not real. It exists on paper alone and is, in fact, a fraud on the Commonwealth government. Just because a person has not been apprehended in such a fraud does not mean that this person has added anything to the community,” Kaipat said.

Kaipat agreed that foreign workers who are given long-term status would be likely to spend more of their earnings on-island, rather than send money out of the CNMI in remittances.

“However, the terms of this bill do not make this benefit worthwhile because the potential costs to the Commonwealth would be so much higher than the possible benefit,” she said.

Kaipat disagreed that the proposed status will “greatly relieve the administrative processing, and enforcement burdens on Labor.”

She said the bill is so defective that the Labor’s burdens probably would be increased because of extensive fraud and evasion.

This bill, she added, would also create a substantial new litigation burden for the Immigration Division as foreign workers seek to cling to their new status in the Commonwealth.

Kaipat agreed that “resident foreign national status will benefit workers who will freely contract their services and change employers if their employment arrangements are unsatisfactory.”

Kaipat, however, questioned the corresponding benefit for CNMI citizens who are trying to find work.

“This bill is lopsided special interest pleading in favor of the foreign workers. The drafter of the bill has no interest in the plight of Commonwealth citizens who are out of work,” she said.

Kaipat said a move to bring 20,000 aliens into a new “status” in the CNMI would cause a serious adverse reaction in Washington D.C.

“This very large number would be a deliberate slap in the face to the authors of the federalization bill which rejected this very provision (status for persons who had been in the Commonwealth for five years) and instead used provisions that seek to deport all these people over the next five years. It might even invite even more punitive legislation in the next Congress,” Kaipat said.