Woodruff: Labor relies on the flawed opinion of former AG

Labor administrative hearing officer Jerry Cody has relied on a deeply flawed opinion of then-attorney general Edward T. Buckingham in sanctioning employers for, among other things, not filing a “declaration” with Labor’s Citizen Job Placement Section, according to attorney Stephen Woodruff.

Woodruff told Saipan Tribune yesterday that Buckingham’s decision says that “this is a regulation of labor, not immigration, and that the CNMI can do it.”

“That contention is even more bogus than the arguments made by the State of Arizona, but it stands as a CNMI Attorney General’s opinion, and Mr. Cody may feel bound by it,” Woodruff said.

In 2010, President Obama’s administration sued Arizona to block provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law that then-governor Benigno R. Fitial and then-AG Buckingham supported. The Obama administration asserted that the Arizona immigration law usurps the federal government’s “pre-eminent authority” under the U.S. Constitution to regulate immigration.

Woodruff said in his opinion, attorney Steven Pixley is correct in his federal preemption contention.

Pixley, as counsel for Kanoa Resort in a Labor case, asserted that the federal government has enacted extensive regulations regarding the CW-1 immigration designation as well as the employment of aliens in the Commonwealth. Pixley said the Department of Labor’s enforcement of auxiliary laws and regulations cannot withstand preemption scrutiny.

Wodruff noted that someone needs to put the matter before the federal court and get a declaratory judgment and injunction.

In Arizona, Woodruff said the U.S. Supreme Court held key parts of the Arizona law invalid, and there was not even an express preemption provision in any statute.

“Here, Subtitle A of Title VII of the CNRA [Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008] explicitly provides that it and the immigration laws of the United States ‘supersede and replace all laws, provisions, or programs of the Commonwealth relating to the admission of aliens and the removal of aliens from the Commonwealth,’” Woodruff said.

The lawyer said that in his opinion, the AG’s opinion, which was technically limited to the power of the CNMI government to revoke umbrella permits during the first two years of the transition, was “very clearly and obviously wrong.”

The CNRA, Woodruff said, very clearly preempted all CNMI authority relative to immigration, not just laws and regulations but all provisions and programs “relating to” as well.

“The CNMI regulations and enforcement are quite simply a thinly veiled attempt by the CNMI government to refuse to get out of an activity that Congress already kicked them out of, for good cause,” he said.

Woodruff said the types of CNMI government actions Pixley is complaining about provide absolutely no genuine benefit to U.S. workers in the CNMI.

The lawyer said the CNMI does not progress by thumbing its nose at federal law and insisting on attempting to assert power and authority it does not have.

“That just makes the CNMI look arrogant, petty, silly, and small, and breeds contempt for the law and contempt for the political class,” he said.

The CNMI, Woodruff said, can progress by developing sound multi-faceted strategies, building alliances, engendering cooperation, and achieving changes in the law, local and federal.