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Opportunity for CNMI citizens
A friend shares NMD Corp.’s goal to maintain local culture that is disappearing daily. He asked if anything can be done to stop the trend, apparently toward a U.S. funded Chamorro-Carolinian village with Filipino “hostesses” and Chinese laborers and masseuses owned and operated by organized foreign criminals that fund politicians to keep the status quo Jack Abramoff’s bribery of the U.S. House of Representatives advanced while protecting foreign grocery store owners who won’t hire citizens and reside in U.S. subsidized housing awaiting the SNAP food stamp bonanza. He said, “I guess you can’t have it all; still, it would be nice to see local shop owners, and know our kids have opportunity here.”
U.S. law guarantees the same economic protections for CNMI citizens that all Americans enjoy by requiring foreign nationals to have a U.S. visa and gave the 184 CNMI businesses years to prepare. USCIS has repeated the law at many forums. This will guarantee opportunity for CNMI citizens.
Foreign interests prefer hiring from our pool of disenfranchised labor and fund our politicians to stay here without a visa. If passed, a congressional bill may give non-visa investors a free pass indefinably. It is shocking that a CNMI politician would support something so certain to harm 99 percent of our citizens.
Two reasons, of many, for requiring a visa is: a) it ensures properly screened investors that must hire citizens (or PRs/FAS, etc.) under the terms of their visa. And b) It will open endless opportunity in the hospitality industry for citizens. That is why the U.S. and other highly evolved societies enjoying high standards of living and qualities of life require investor visas and the only plausible explanation for a CNMI politician to oppose is to protect a strong funding source: those no-visa foreign businesses.
Foreigners here mocked the law and didn’t bother to apply for a visa, coupled with little enforcement and the complete disregard of U.S. law has resulted in a new immigration category of CW owners that hire themselves, other CWs, but not citizens. To quote one, “They don’t hire us, so why hire them?”
The simple solution is 1. Follow U.S. investor law 2. End the worker transition period or sharply reduce caps over two years and all return to country of origin to apply 3. Raise CW fees => H visas charges.
The hotels, hospital, and our largest employers combined don’t employ 2,000 CWs and the bulk of 10,000 CWs are employed by other CWs and their businesses that never bothered with a CNMI visa, much less a U.S. visa.
Allowing CWs to abuse other CWs, expand Saipan’s sex trade industry, and advance our international reputation for human trafficking on U.S. soil must stop.
Reporting illegal activity is a responsibility of citizenship as immigration fraud may be a serious felony. Five thousand NMD Corp. members could likely name hundreds of fraudsters in a one-hour meeting.
Citizens are encouraged to write your congressman, U.S. Secretary of Labor Perez, House Speaker John Boehner, newspapers, Facebook, and other media to stop these crimes and to protect U.S. taxpayers who fund our poor economic model, unaware of the waste and corruption.
Ron Hodges
Puerto Rico, Saipan
