By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

THE lawyer for Dekada cites the failure of the Fitial administration and previous CNMI leadership to raise the islands’ minimum wage of $3.05 an hour and improve the immigration status of long-term alien residents for the sweeping federal wage hike measure and renewed calls for a federal takeover of the commonwealth’s immigration.
Stephen Woodruff, a former legal counsel to the local Senate, said for 10 years the CNMI leadership has had the opportunity to increase the minimum wage “in a way that makes sense,” one that is easy for businesses to adapt to, but it failed to do so.
“And the fact of the matter is that the CNMI economy is as bad as it is right now partly because of the refusal to increase the minimum wage,” Woodruff told the estimated 500 workers mostly from Bangladesh, the Philippines, China, Korea, Nepal and Sri Lanka who converged in front of the Kristo Rai Church and the Horiguchi Building in Garapan on late Friday afternoon for a peaceful rally.
Dekada staged the rally to show support to the pending measure to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour and to further push for improved civil, legal and immigration status for long-term alien residents in the CNMI.
“It looks like the battle for the minimum wage has been won,” said Woodruff, adding that immigration reform will follow soon, as the crowd applauded while police officers were on standby.
Speakers took turns in addressing their fellow workers who were holding placards that read, “To U.S Congress, Democrats, give us economic justice, prosperity and human dignity,” “Miller`s bill OK, Nancy Pelosi approves,” “Give us improved immigration status,” “Green card = path to political rights,” “Support Miller bill HR 5550,” and “Green card = human dignity.”
One of those workers, Elias Magabo, who has been working on Saipan for 21 years, said he wants an increase in the minimum wage and a green card, having a 13-year-old U.S. citizen son.
Magabo, a butcher, said when he came to Saipan, the minimum wage was only $1.75 an hour until it reached $3.05 in 1996.
Another worker who joined the rally, Zhang Changzheng, 40, of L&T, said he looks forward to an increase in the CNMI‘s minimum wage.
Before 7 p.m. on Friday, after converging in front of the Kristo Rai Church, Dekada members marched to the Fiesta Resort and Spa in Garapan where David Cohen was to address members of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce.
The Dekada members, however, were not able to have a dialogue with Cohen as they immediately went back to the parking lot of Kristo Rai Church after reaching the hotel façade.
Woodruff, the keynote speaker at Dekada‘s peaceful rally in Garapan on Friday, said a minimum wage hike measure passed by the CNMI government that takes into account the needs of the local economy is better than one enacted in Washington, D.C.
“But that’s not the way that it`s going to be and its going to be imposed by Washington…And the reason for that is because of a failure of leadership right here in the CNMI,” Woodruff said.
Nine months ago, Woodruff and Dekada officers led by president Bonifacio Sagana wrote Gov. Benigno R. Fitial a letter, asking for CNMI laws to be changed to give improved immigration status for long-term alien residents.
The letter spelled out the details of the changes to the law recommended by Dekada, a movement claiming to have some 5,000 members seeking permanent residence status for alien workers who have been in the CNMI for at least five years.
“That was over nine months ago and nothing has happened,” said Woodruff, who has also been representing alien workers in labor and deportation cases in court.
Woodruff said prior to writing Fitial a letter, Dekada was told to look for a “local solution” because critics and other local and federal officials, including Cohen, said Dekada “had no chance of getting green cards through the U.S. Congress.”
“Well, we tried a local solution. And they didn’t do anything. Nothing has been passed and so now is the time that it`s going to go back to Congress. And the same thing is true for the minimum wage,” he added.
Disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whom Fitial described as a close friend, was instrumental in blocking legislation aimed at raising labor and immigration standards in the CNMI years back.
Dekada president Bonifacio Sagana, in a prepared speech before Dekada members, said the gathering of workers on Friday only proves that the dream of long-term alien residents of improved labor and immigration status lives on.
Responding to criticism and attacks against Dekada, Sagana said they do not and will never resort to cheap and irresponsible approaches to advance their interests.
“This is what Dekada is all about — a movement that promotes responsible advocacy of things we believe we are rightfully entitled to. Our dream will never die nor should we slow down. We have become stronger…The smell of success is in the air,” he said.
Remedios Montuarto, 47, who was among the hundreds of alien workers who joined the Dekada rally, said all she and her husband want is to get IR status, having two children born in the CNMI and who are therefore U.S. citizens.