By Haidee V. Eugenio
Variety Assistant Editor

THE U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has another question regarding CNMI immigration — it wants information on specific violations of labor and immigration laws in the commonwealth.
The committee, which will hold an oversight hearing on the CNMI on Feb. 8, earlier submited 24 questions to the U.S. Department of the Interior, including “whether the commonwealth could operate an immigration system that is satisfactory to the federal government.”
The panel now wants Interior to provide copies of any letters, reports or other communications made since 2000 from the federal labor ombudsman’s office to any federal or CNMI labor, immigration or law enforcement agencies regarding possible labor and immigration violations.
Labor complaints are being filed with the CNMI Department of Labor on a daily or weekly basis.
Federal Labor Ombudsman Jim Benedetto yesterday said his office has been compiling “thousands of pages of letters and communications” regarding specific labor and immigration violations since 2000.
Human trafficking, minors dancing in strip clubs, illegal recruitment, illegal sponsorships, and failure to provide work to recruited alien workers, according to Benedetto, are some of the labor and immigration issues his office has brought to the attention of local agencies in the past years.
“We have a lot of correspondence with various agencies regarding these. Congress has created this office and they want to see what we have done in the last six years,” he said.
In December, six of seven newly arrived Chinese women sought the help of the federal labor ombudsman’s office.
The women paid 46,500 to 48,500 Chinese RMB, or $6,000 each, in China to work as garment and hotel workers on Saipan only to learn that these jobs did not exist when they arrived here.
Instead, they were offered work as prostitutes and club workers on Tinian.
The CNMI Department of Labor earlier told Variety that they were investigating this matter. So far, no report has been released by Labor on the matter.
The U.S. Senate panel has noted that in its Sept.1999 hearing on the CNMI, witness from the then Clinton administration said “no” to the question on whether the Northern Marianas could operate an immigration system that was satisfactory to the federal government.