By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE Fitial administration is willing to accept “partial federalization” but will insist on continued local control over labor and immigration, according to Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr.
He said the administration agrees there is a need for federal border control, but not the extension of federal immigration law to the islands.
“There is a political phobia about giving permanent residency to (foreign) workers,” Reyes said. “There is a fear that local people would be disenfranchised.”
The contention that migrant workers will eventually leave the islands if they get permanent U.S. residency is “speculative” and “debatable,” Reyes said.
There are about 27,000 documented foreign workers in the Northern Marianas, mostly from China and the Philippines.
According to Reyes, the administration and the Saipan Economic Development Council, a local business group, will present their joint position paper to the U.S. Senate where the measure to federalize local immigration is expected to be introduced this spring.
In a statement, SEDC co-chairwoman Marian Aldan-Pierce said: “As we understand from our meetings, the federal government has offered to partner with the CNMI to draft legislation that would bring the CNMI borders under U.S. immigration and federal jurisdiction but allow the CNMI to continue to exercise our Covenant-provided authority to continue control of those tools.”
She added, “Our first choice would be to continue CNMI control of those tools. If that isn’t possible, we are prepared to work with the administration to develop a system that would address federal political concerns while still meeting the economic needs of this fragile island economy.”
SEDC co-chairman Bob Jones, for his part, said: “With the terrorist activity in the world today, we welcome the federal government’s help in controlling our borders around the 13 or so islands….But we must at least maintain the labor and immigration tools locally that we need to grow our economy out of the mess it’s in today.”
Former Insular Affairs Director Allen Stayman, who is now a senior staff member of Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. and chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, has said that the federalization bill will not be introduced unless it has bipartisan support.
He was here early this week with Josh Johnson, senior staff member of the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, and Office of Insular Affairs congressional liaison Steve Sander, who said that although the Bush administration’s support for the federalization of local immigration is not yet apparent, “it will be there down the road.”